Incoming staff and student email are handled differently (i.e. stored on different servers). Please see the appropriate section below.
Be careful when accessing email from multiple machines with a mail client (in other words, not using the web interface). If one of the clients is configured to remove mail from the mail server while retrieving, the mail is stored on the local machine only. You will be unable to access the mail from any other machine. This is particularly important if you want to read your mail from both on-campus and off-campus.
Outgoing email (SMTP) need only be sent to one server and will work for mail sent from on-campus or off-campus, provided that the from address contains “up.ac.za”. The SMTP server is mx1.up.ac.za, port 25 (default). Do not select authenticated SMTP access as the server does not require it.
Alternatively (off campus), you should be able to use the SMTP server provided by your ISP (for example, ADSL users may also use smtp.saix.net).
Incoming staff email is received and stored on mx1.up.ac.za. To retrieve the email, your email client software (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.) must be configured to connect to the mx1 server. The server makes available the mailbox's via both the IMAP and POP protocols. It is also possible to access the email via a web interface. The web interface is available at https://mx1.up.ac.za/email.
Note the use of HTTPS. By using encrypted HTTP, the username / password are protect from prying eyes.
To access the mailboxes from a mail client program, select the ”IMAP” server type and use mx1.up.ac.za
as the server. The username and password will be that issued by IT when you requested the email account. Select the ”TLS encryption” option in your client to ensure that your username / password are not sent in clear text over the network. This is also the reason not to use POP as encryption is not generally supported for POP.
For example, to create an email profile in Thunderbird / Icedove to access your email account, use the following procedure:
Start Thunderbird / Icedove
Select the Account Settings option from the Edit menu
Click on the Add Account botton on the left.
In the popup window, select the Email account type as the type of account to add. Click on the Next button to continue.
In the “Identity” window, fill in your name and email (for example john.doe@up.ac.za). Click on the Next button to continue.
Select IMAP as the type of server and fill in mx1.up.ac.za as the incoming server. Click on the Next button to continue.
Fill in the incoming and outgoing usernames, typically the same as the email account name (what stands before the @ sign). Click on the Next button to continue.
Choose an account name, for example “Work”. Click on the Next button to continue.
The final window will show the configuration summary. Click on the Next button to continue.
The account has now been created. However, additional settings need to be made
In the Account Settings window, select the account.
The basic information about the account will be displayed. Click on Server Settings on the right.
Under Security Settings, select TLS, if available to enable encryption.
You may also want to change the email check interval. Click on the Ok button to save the changes.
There are many options that can be tweaked, such as how forwarding and replying of messages should incorporate the orginal message.
When you attempt to connect to the server, a popup window will appear asking for your email password. Once you have entered you password, you should see your email as retrieved from the server.
Incoming student email is received and stored on “student.up.ac.za”. To retrieve the email, your email client software (Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.) must be configured to connect to the student server. The server makes available the mailbox's via both the IMAP and POP protocols. It is also possible to access the email via a web interface. The web interface is available at https://student.up.ac.za/email
Note the use of HTTPS. By using encrypted HTTP, the username / password are protect from prying eyes. Unfortunately HTTPS access is currently broken and HTTP is the only option.
To access the mailboxes from a mail client program, select the ”IMAP” server type and use student.up.ac.za as the server. The username and password will be that issued by IT.Select the ”TLS encryption” option in your client to ensure that your username / password are not sent in clear text over the network. This is also the reason not to use POP as encryption is not generally supported for POP.
See the staff section for the procedure for setting up a Thunderbird account.
