VCOM EMAIL: July 2011

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Back to school update.

Welcome again!

As we approach the beginning of the school year it would be advisable for our students to know a few things.

You will notice new equipment in the lecture halls. The systems have just been put in and we will be watching and testing them carefully. We installed an all new podium systems, sound system, and many other nice new features.

A note about passwords:

You have two major passwords that you use for accessing various VCOM systems. Your VCOM credentials are responsible for access to your email; you do NOT need to change this password at this time. Should you choose to, you can log into mail.vcom.vt.edu, clicking Options, then Change your password. If you do not know your current password please call or stop by the IT department to have it reset.

You also have a VT PID that you use for VT_WLAN access and Scholar. This summer VT required everyone with VT PIDs to have a current or updated password. Please take a moment prior to the first day of class to login to my.vt.edu. If you can log in it should prompt your to change your password. MAKE SURE YOU CAN LOG INTO my.vt.edu OR YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ACCESS WIRELESS OR SCHOLAR WHEN YOU RETURN. If you are unsure of what your VT PID is or what the password is you will need to call 540-231-4357. You will need the number from your VCOM passport card to talk to them about your VT PID. Please do this ASAP. When you return many VT students will be returning as well. They are in the same situation so call times at the aforementioned number will be extreme during the beginning of classes. We in the IT department of VCOM do not have the ability to reset this password for you.

Access to email via the internet:

You can access the Outlook Web interface by going to mail.vcom.vt.edu.

Username: VCOM Username(everything prior to @ in your email address)

There is no longer a need for vcom\.

Email Servers and Settings:

The bulk of the transition is complete. There are a few minor things left to clean up behind the scenes but the settings for access aren’t expected to change moving forward. There were some minor disruptions last week but things seem to be clearing up so please report issues that you may have. Mac OS X Lion appears to have a rather nasty bug that will affect users trying to connect to the VCOM servers from a Mac. I do not recommend upgrading until more research is done into this.

Outlook 2007 and 2010 Clients:

Existing exchange accounts should have automatically picked up the new mail settings. There should be no need to change anything. Outlook on XP based machines will have issues. I have a registry fix that can take care of it so let me know if you need it.

I will be posting a guide with images in the coming days on how to setup a new account.

Smartphones(iOS and Android based or that use ActiveSync):

iOS: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2480

Android: Click menu, then settings, then accounts, then Add Account or select the existing account, then Exchange or Corporate Sync Account.

The following settings are the same for both platforms.

Server: mail.vcom.edu

Domain: vcom

Domain\username: vcom\VCOM Username(everything prior to @ in your email address)

Use secure or SSL: Yes

Gmail Pop Access:

Username: VCOM Username(everything prior to @ in your email address)

POP Server: mail.vcom.edu

Port: 995

Always use SSL box: Checked

Sending Server: mail.vcom.edu

Sending Port: 587

Secure using TLS

Mozilla Thunderbird POP Account on Windows 7:

These settings should work with all POP mail clients.

POP Mail Server: mail.vcom.edu

Port: 995

Username: VCOM Username(everything prior to @ in your email address)

Connection Security: SSL/TLS

Authentication method: NTLM

Outgoing Server: mail.vcom.edu

Port: 587

Connection security: STARTTLS

Authentication method: NTLM

More specific cases and guides to follow as time permits.

Mac email access:

I think there are a few issues here. I don’t have a Mac to test with so I can’t verify anything at this point. The issues seem to be related to how the Mac OS handles SSL certificates. Lion specifically is having issues.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3188992?start=0&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3190000

I’ll update more on that when I have the chance. For now Mac users are advised to check mail.vcom.vt.edu regularly. Not getting email on your Mac mail app or any other program is not a reason to miss an email. Curretly I have a report of Macs with 10.7 Lion on them not being able to access mail.vcom.vt.edu through Safari. Install FireFox, that has been reported working on Lion.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Tuesday Update

Greetings All!!

I have a mixed bag of news to report. The good news is that everybody is transferred over and now on the new server. Everybody should now have access to the new interface through Web Outlook. The bad news is that there are some troubling issues starting to crop up with Outlook clients. They started with Outlook clients that were using Outlook Anywhere to connect on XP based machines. It has now started to affect Windows 7 based machines using Outlook. Our server admin is aware of the issue and working on it. It is our hope that this will be resolved soon.

There are also some issues with POP accounts. Currently POP accounts that are using SSL may have issues. POP accounts that use TLS should be ok. We are aware of this and that is our email admin’s next task after he resolves the Outlook Anywhere issue.

Smartphones should be unaffected by any of this.

We are working very hard to restore complete functionality. I apologize for any disruption. We in the VCOM IT department and our admins at Tech are working to get things exactly right to ensure connectivity for as many users as we can.

Many Thanks

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Sunday Update

Greetings All!!!

According to our server admin all Faculty and Staff mailboxes are on the new server and thus using the new settings. About ¾ of the student mail boxes are moved and the rest will go overnight. The way to know is to log into mail.vcom.edu and look for the new interface after the login.

UPDATE: As of Monday morning EVERYBODY is transitioned over. Please use new settings and let me know if there are any problems.

Please try the new settings found in a previous post and report problems.

Many Thanks!!!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Friday Update

Greetings All

We are getting ready to begin the next phase of the transition. The settings that are currently working for most people will need to be updated. Our admins at tech will be moving people over in a gradual process. Basically, just look for your current settings to stop working then try the new ones. One way to tell if your account has been transitioned over is to login to mail.vcom.edu. If you get a certificate error or see the old interface then you have not been moved over yet.
This process may take some time to get everybody transitioned. Please do not expect the following settings to work for you right now.

The general points I need to make clear are:

Email addresses are not changing. Only server settings and names are.

Access to Web Outlook via mail.vcom.vt.edu and mail.vcom.edu are the priority. As long as those are working properly then you are getting your email and you have access to your email. I will be doing my best to keep other settings up to date but just because your preferred method of checking your email is not working does not mean you aren’t getting your email.

After the upgrades are done there should be some benefits to most people. I understand that these have caused some of you temporary issues. Thank you for your patience and once moved over we shouldn’t have to deal with access issues much longer.

Information for once your individual account is transferred over:

Web Outlook:

You should now be able to go to mail.vcom.edu or mail.vcom.vt.edu and log in with your username and password. There will be no need to use vcom\ in your username anymore. There should be no more certificate issues. You will see a new, much more robust interface. This new interface includes a more robust Help feature. If you need help using the interface please click the ? icon on the top right of the interface.

Outlook Clients:

These should update themselves. You may receive an autodiscover or a message that says changes were mad that require a restart. Click yes or ok to these. Close Outlook and reopen it.

ActiveSync/Exchange/Corporate Sync accounts on iOS and Android based devices:

It would be best to delete the account and add it back. It would not be a bad idea to turn the device off after deleting the account and turn it back on then add it back.

Exchange Server: mail.vcom.edu

Domain: vcom

Username: first part of your email address, everything prior to @

Domain\username: vcom\ first part of your email address, everything prior to @

Use SSL: Yes

Use Secure: Yes

You should no longer get a certificate warning here now.

BlackBerry Devices:

Delete the account, turn off the phone, turn on the phone, add the account. There is a quirk here on these devices where if your username doesn’t match the first part of your email address you will have issues. I know of only one person this affects. The solution is manual setup with mail.vcom.edu as the server setting.

POP access:

Incoming: mail.vcom.edu

SSL: Yes

Port: 995

Authentication Type: Secure Password Authentication(SPA)

Outgoing: mail.vcom.edu

SSL: Yes

Port: 25

Use same credentials as incoming server.

I was able to securely send and receive using these settings on an already transitioned test account so they should work for everything including Gmail and Macs. I’m eager for feedback on that.

Please let me know of any problems. I cannot answer if your account has been transitioned or not. htucker@vcom.vt.edu

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Tuesday Update

Greetings All,

Everything seems to be going as promised. The first stage of the upgrade is complete and we are going to be transitioning people over shortly. There are a few important things I want to mention.

Email addresses are not changing. These settings are just server names and have no bearing on what your email address is.

Web Outlook is working properly. This means that you have access to your email no matter the state of other devices or mail access programs. Not being able to access via your preferred method does not mean that you do not have access to your email. Please see information for accessing Web Outlook below.

In the next week or so settings that work on smart phones that use ActiveSync or exchange accounts will change. The information on what the new settings will be is contained below.

On to the specifics for each setup:

Web Outlook: mail.vcom.vt.edu and mail.vcom.edu should both take you where you need to go. The login page is different and so is the method. YOU NO LONGER NEED VCOM\ in front of your username. Simply putting the first part of your email address, everything prior to the @ symbol, will be what you use for your username. Your password is the same as you have been using to access your VCOM email. There is a certificate error but if you choose to go through it, by click on continue to page, then you will have access to your email. This certificate error will clear up as people are transitioned in the near term.

Outlook Clients: So far these have been updating themselves appropriately. You may get autodiscover or security prompts but if you answer yes then you should be connected. So far I have seen almost no problems out of them.

Android and iOS based devices or devices using ActiveSync or exchange accounts: The current setting work for now but they will need to be updated once your transition occurs. The future settings are not active now but will be once fully transitioned. I’m trying to determine if I can send notifications when the current settings will break but I’m not sure if I can. If you are working fine now and it ceases try the new settings.

Current settings (NOT PERMANENT):

Exchange server: elros.vcom.vt.edu

Domain: vcom

SSL/Secure connection: yes

You will get a certificate error.

Future settings (not currently active but will be as the transition moves ahead):

Exchange server: mail.vcom.edu

Domain: vcom

SSL/Secure connection: yes

BlackBerrys: The one that I have seen need to have the email account deleted and re-added using the usual method. One user reported that she needed to reboot her phone after removing the account before she could successfully add the account back.

Gmail POP access: As reported by Edi B “I've been messing around with the gmail settings and wanted to let you know what my current setup is. With this setup I at least have a secure connection with outgoing e-mail. I hope this helps as well.

POP3:

POP server: elros.vcom.edu

Port: 110

SSL: Off

Outgoing:

SMTP Server: mail.vcom.edu

Port 587

TLS: On

Mac POP and IMAP clients: You can look back over my previous posts. There are some issues that are preventing me from being certain of what settings will work. We are keeping you in mind but it may be until everything is fully migrated before we know for sure what your settings are. If your clients aren’t working for you please use Web Outlook until things normalize.

Thank you for your patience during the transition. The end results of this are going to well justify the temporary headaches.

Harth Tucker

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Sunday VERY PM update

Greetings all,
I have a few updates, mostly pertaining to Mac users. I’ll start with the general things.

Outlook and Outlook Web Access: Both are working as expected. You may be getting security prompts and certificate errors. These are temporary and unavoidable during the transition.

Smartphones using ActiveSync or Exchange accounts (Androids, iPones, and iPads):

I put out two different sets of settings: current and future. THE FUTURE SETTINGS WILL NOT WORK FOR YOU RIGHT NOW. In time you will need to change to the future settings. I will do my best to notify you when the change will take place.

Here they are again:

Current settings (NOT PERMANENT):

Exchange server: elros.vcom.vt.edu
Domain: vcom
SSL/Secure connection: yes

You will get a certificate error.

Future settings (not currently active but will be as the transition moves ahead):

Exchange server: mail.vcom.edu
Domain: vcom
SSL/Secure connection: yes

Mac Mail Clients:

There are two types of accounts that SHOULD currently work: IMAP and POP3. There are some major differences between the two. There are a couple of things to keep in mind here before I go into the differences. I do not have a Mac to test with so I can’t verify any of the following settings. I’m getting mixed messages from different people on what works and what doesn’t even to the point that the same settings don’t work on different setups. THESE SETTINGS MAY BE TEMPORARY. As the migration goes on these settings may change. I will do my best to update here or by other means when they do.

Now, to the differences. POP accounts are one way. Your computer pulls or copies the email from the server but never reports back to it the status of your email. Status meaning replied to or read etc. The default behavior for POP accounts is to pull the email off the server. In our environment this has some ups and downs. It empties your inbox so you don’t have to worry about your size quota. It also means that any emails received will only exist on your computer and can be subject to loss from a hard drive failure. You also cannot access emails already pulled by a POP account on the Web Outlook interface from another computer. All mail clients have a setting that says something along the lines of “leave a copy of this message on the server.” If checked the email will exist, as unread, on the server and count against your quota.

IMAP accounts are two way communications. This means that what you see in your client will be exactly what is on the server. This is very similar to exchange/activesync accounts but not as robust. In the Outlook world there are provisions for archiving and pulling mail out of the IMAP accounts while preserving them on the computer. Since I don’t have a Mac I can’t tell you what those are. I’m sure they exist. Deleting an email removes it from your quota as long as it is removed from your deleted items folder as well.

Sunday AM Update

Greetings All,

Things seem to be working as expected today. The settings that I have posted previously are working for most people. I have a report of the POP settings not working on Mac clients. Please let me know if this is the case for everybody. Htucker@vcom.vt.edu

See the Saturday PM update for current settings.

A note on email addresses: Email addresses are not changing. These are just the server settings and names that have changed. All email addresses will remain the same.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Saturday PM Update

Greetings All,

Here is where we stand:

There was a minor issue this AM that our VT admin corrected.

Outlook Users:
Everything should work fine for you. You may be prompted with security warnings or autodiscover warnings when opening Outlook but these are fine. These warnings are temporary and necessary for your settings to change automatically. Please answer yes to these when Outlook presents them to you.

Outlook Web Access users:
mail.vcom.edu AND mail.vcom.vt.edu will both take you to where you need to go. The login page now looks different and there is a minor change in what you need to put in for your username. IT IS NO LONGER NECESSARY TO PUT VCOM\ INFRONT OF YOUR USERNAME. Just put the first part of your email address (everything prior to the @ symbol) for your username. Enter your password and login. You will get a certificate error, this is fine and temporary. You should then see your Web Outlook as usual.

Smart Phone Access:

This is going to be in limbo for a little while. I apologize for that but it is necessary for the transition. The following settings should work for you however THEY ARE NOT PERMANENT. These will change sometime soon but for now this should work for you.

These settings are for exchange/active sync/corporate sync accounts. You will get a certificate or security warning but it is fine to continue through this.

I apologize to BlackBerry users; they have a completely different access mechanism. I don’t have one so I can test it. Even if I could, the very limited way that they access email may not work during transition.

Current settings (NOT PERMANENT):

Exchange server: elros.vcom.vt.edu
Domain: vcom
SSL/Secure connection: yes

Future settings (not currently active but will be as the transition moves ahead):

Exchange server: mail.vcom.edu
Domain: vcom
SSL/Secure connection: yes

POP/Gmail accounts:

There are some out there that prefer to use POP access or access their accounts through Gmail via the POP protocol. This is not a recommend method but we recognize its importance. As the transition continues I will push for this to be considered. For now here are the settings that have worked for me. I tested this using Windows Live Mail on Windows 7.

Incoming Mail Server: elros.vcom.vt.edu

Username: everything prior to the @ symbol in your email address with no VCOM\

Authentication: Clear Text

Port: 110

SSL: off

Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.vcom.vt.edu

Use same credentials for authentication as incoming server

Port: 25

SSL: off

Sending through Gmail via our POP server: I don’t think this is supported at the moment. You may be able to send through Gmail. We will attempt to support this in the future.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From a user: I've been messing around with the gmail settings and wanted to let you know what my current setup is. With this setup I at least have a secure connection with outgoing e-mail. I hope this helps as well.

POP3:

POP server: elros.vcom.edu
Port: 110
SSL: Off

Outgoing:

SMTP Server: mail.vcom.edu
Port 587
TLS: On

Credit goes to Edi B
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A continual source of frustration has been access to POP on Macs. The same settings that work on Windows SHOULD work on Macs but sometimes don’t. A quirk to watch out for on the Macs, changes to the server settings in the mail apps on those platforms often do not take until the app is fully quit and restarted. I will do what I can to ensure that Macs will work with POP accounts. Without one to test with this will be difficult.

Thank you for all your patience!

Harth Tucker

Saturday AM Update

Greetings All,

I spoke with our admin at VT. He got things working properly for the most part. FOR NOW when you go to mail.vcom.edu and then login (WITHOUT vcom\) you will get a certificate error. If you continue through the certificate error then you should have access to your email. During the transition phase there is nothing that can be done about the cert error. We will be in a transitional period for a little while so you should see the interface change as well as the cert error disappear.

Phones: This afternoon I will do some testing with my Android based phone. I will post what is working for me and what should work for everybody else.

Outlook users: At this time I have no reported problems accessing email through Outlook.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Happy Saturday!!! We have some mixed results this morning. Outlook clients look to be working well. The link to mail.vcom.vt.edu is taking you to where you should end up however most accounts can’t login. The temporary work around is to go to elros.vcom.vt.edu and log in there. Please remember to put vcom\ then your username to log in.

I notified the mail admin so hopefully the mail.vcom.edu will be working properly shortly.

A quick note about phones:

Until the dust settles I won’t know for sure what will work on the various platforms. The priority for this weekend is Web Outlook and Outlook clients. As time permits I will post what settings do work however, patience is advised because what may work during the upgrades might not work once they are done. I apologize for the issues. The end result of this will be well worth the temporary problems.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Welcome!

This is a temporary blog setup to inform our VCOM user base of any problems that may affect access to VCOM email during our upgrades. At this time there are no announcements that our users need to be aware of.

I wanted to take a moment and make you all aware that there MAY be some temporary disruption in email services starting this Friday, the 1^st of July. You may have already noticed a new page when you visit mail.vcom.vt.edu. We are in the process of upgrading our email servers to offer better access and more robust features. Our hope is that this will be transparent to most users. The settings that will change shortly will take a little while to propagate through the network, as such the best course of action may be to wait until Saturday should you have issues accessing your e-mail Friday evening. Our admins at tech will be doing many things to the servers this weekend so there may be short sporadic outages.

I will be monitoring the status of email systems over the weekend and doing everything that I can to ensure access remains as easy as possible.

VCOM Faculty and Staff:

The machines that we have issued you should be configured in a way that the changes made will not affect your access. You may receive a security alert when opening Outlook. Server names such as elledan.vcom.edu, elrohi.vcom.edu, elros.vcom.edu are all fine and part of our system. Please answer yes to these security alerts.

For our users that use the Outlook Web Access:

The URL for this will remain the same, mail.vcom.vt.edu for now. This will be phased out in favor of mail.vcom.edu. Both URLs should function but mail.vcom.edu will be the one for future use. Please adjust your shortcuts appropriately.

For our users that use Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010:

If we configured this for you, or you followed our guidance when setting up an exchange account then you should not experience any problems. You may receive a security alert when opening Outlook. Server names such as elledan.vcom.edu, elrohi.vcom.edu, elros.vcom.edu are all fine and part of our system. Please answer yes to these security alerts.

For users that use other mail clients that access via POP and IMAP protocols:

Please use mail.vcom.edu for incoming and outgoing mail servers. Port settings should remain the same.

For smart phone users:

If your phone is setup to use ActiveSync or access via exchange servers you may need to update the exchange server to point to mail.vcom.edu or elledan.vcom.edu. Phones can be a big question mark as we don’t have every different type out there to test. Please be patient with problems with smart phones. In most cases the best way to restore functionality is to remove the account and re-add it.

Certificate warnings:

These may linger as issues for a little while. If you see a security certificate warning, continue through it and it should be fine.

General troubleshooting advice:

If you have connection issues reboot your computer.

If you still have problems hit Windows + R, type cmd then hit enter, then in the black box that appears type ipconfig /flushdns then hit enter.