Frequently Asked Questions: Society Email Addresses

Can societies have email addresses @srcf.ucam.org?

Yes, this facility has recently been developed (summer 2002).

What are the default society email addresses?

If you have not specifically set up any mail processing for your society, the following addresses will be in operation:

• [socname]-admins@srcf.ucam.org - this address cannot be overridden. Mail sent here will be distributed to the individual SRCF mail accounts of all the users who are admins of the society. So, society admins who do not check their email on the SRCF should set up forwarding from their personal SRCF accounts to their main email account.
• [socname]-webmaster@srcf.ucam.org - by default this address is re-routed to [socname]-admins@srcf.ucam.org (see above). This can be overridden in a society .forward file.

IMPORTANT: Since important messages for society admins may be sent to one or other of the above addresses, which by default forward to the local SRCF email addresses of the society admins, please ensure that you either check your local SRCF inbox or arrange for your personal SRCF email account to forward to an account you do read — see the FAQ entry: How do I read my SRCF email? for more details.

How do I control what happens to society email?

There are two ways. One way is to set up one or more Mailman mailing lists — see the FAQ entry: How do I get a Mailman mailing list set up? for more details. These can have names of the form [socname]@srcf.ucam.org or [socname]-[anything]@srcf.ucam.org, and will take priority over the .forward method described below. Mailing lists are appropriate if you wish to distribute mail to a large number of people or if you wish mailing list members to have the ability to (un)subscribe themselves.

The second method is to set up a .forward file in your society's directory (/societies/[socname]/.forward). This will be used to process all email sent to addresses of the form [socname]@srcf.ucam.org.uk or [socname]-[anything]@srcf.ucam.org, with the exception of [socname]-admins@srcf.ucam.org which always has the behaviour described in the previous answer, and any names already used for your mailing lists.

Note that there is one difference to the usual operation of .forward files, which is that if no delivery is set up during the .forward file processing, then the email will be bounced (unlike your personal .forward file, where the mail would end up in your personal inbox).

The syntax of .forward files is explained in detail in the exim documentation, specifically, here.

Note that if you use the “save” command, you must specify absolute file paths (e.g.“'/societies/mysoc/saved-emails”), and if you use the logfile command, you must not only use an absolute file path but also must specify a mode parameter of 0660, otherwise the logfile will not be readable or writable by you! e.g. “logfile /societies/mysoc/emaillog 0660”

To get you started, here is an example .forward file for the fictional society “mysoc”. It would be at /societies/mysoc/.forward. Lines beginning with # are comments, but note that the first line (“# Exim filter”) is special and must be left intact for the filter file to work.

# Exim filter

#  mysoc-webmaster@srcf.ucam.org should go to abc12@cam.ac.uk

if ($local_part_suffix is "-webmaster") then
  deliver abc12@cam.ac.uk
endif

# Publicity address. mysoc-publicity@srcf.ucam.org should go
# to abc12 and def34

if ($local_part_suffix is "-publicity") then
  deliver abc12@cam.ac.uk
  deliver def34@cam.ac.uk
endif

# forward anything else sent to mysoc-[anything]@srcf.ucam.org
# or mysoc@srcf.ucam.org to the committee mailing list:

if not delivered then
  deliver soc-mysoc-committee@lists.cam.ac.uk
endif