E-Mail Vacation Settings
Usage Notes...
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Setting up vacation processing means that people who send mail to
you will receive a copy of your vacation message (at most once per
week per correspondent). Mail that is not addressed specifically
to you (e.g. from mailing lists) will not trigger a message.
The incoming mail remains in your inbox as usual until you check it.
You can also request that a "carbon copy" of all your incoming mail be
sent to a specified address.
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You must enter a VALID username and password to change
vacation settings.
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Having vacation processing in place will not prevent your mail from
being discarded and disabled if you leave it unchecked for extended
periods.
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If you want an extra copy (CC) sent to another person,
specify a complete e-mail address, with no embedded spaces,
including "@" and the domain name. To CC to another address at
Eastern, include "@eou.edu". If you don't want extra copies
of your mail sent to anyone, don't type anything in this field.
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Vacation setup requests are submitted to a batch queue. Usually your
request will be acted on in under a half hour.
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Including weird special characters in your message or your carbon copy
address will generate weird results. Please avoid them.
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Mail addressed to OSU-style first.last aliases will trigger a message
for faculty/staff. Mail addressed to obsolete emily-style aliases
will NOT trigger a message.
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The returned messages' headers will show them as originating from the
account where vacation processing was applied <login@eou.edu>.
If you are receiving mail forwarded via aliases or other institutional
accounts, you may wish to include full details in the vacation message
so that recipients don't become confused over the origin of the
message.
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All users also have the option of setting up vacation processing
from a terminal session on the server. From off campus, you
must use the EOU dialups to do this. To start vacation
processing, use the command `vacation` and follow the prompts.
Refer to the manual page (`man vacation`) to learn the details.
You'll need to know a few simple commands in the vi editor.
To turn off vacation processing, you need only use these two commands:
rm .forward
rm .vacation.*
A terminal session may also be used to edit the vacation message if
you need more room than is provided by the web interface. The file
to edit is .vacation.msg
Security issues...
Exit your web-browser after using this program or others will be able to
access your mailbox and discover personal info. If you can't exit the
browser, enter a bogus password when you're done and attempt to resubmit
the request - this should clear the cached value; but other users may
still be able to use "forward" and "back" to view whatever you've done.
It's also wise to clear the browser's memory and disk caches (if
possible). Clicking
here will discourage (but not prevent) "backing" into your work with
many browsers.
You should only use this program through http to servers where you would
not hesitate to use telnet or ftp.