Hades email service

Overview

SRCF Hades is a modern, standards-compliant email service, introduced in October 2018 for two reasons:

• The old SRCF email service was in need of modernization.
• Many people joining the University this year are only offered a proprietary messaging service which cannot be used from many modern email apps.

For @srcf.net addresses

Use the control panel to switch to Hades: from your member page, select Change email configuration under Email. When you choose to switch your email to Hades, the control panel will explain the consequences which depend upon your current configuration. You will have a chance to cancel the migration after seeing this information.

This applies equally to our old domain @srcf.ucam.org.

For @cam.ac.uk addresses

If you miss Hermes, you can set your @cam.ac.uk email address to deliver mail into your SRCF Hades inbox, thus making Hades the service you use to read your University email.

Go to your page on the University Lookup service. Edit it, and change your ‘@cam delivery address’ to your SRCF email address (for example spqr2@srcf.net). If you have a University Exchange Online account then by default email sent by other Exchange Online users to your @cam.ac.uk address will bypass the setting in University Lookup and be delivered to you Exchange Online inbox regardless. To setup forwarding in ExOL, click on the settings cog icon and search for ‘Forwarding’.

Reading email

Webmail

The easy way to read your email: webmail.hades.srcf.net

For apps: IMAP

To configure any standards-compliant mail app to read your email, you will need the following details:

• Server type: IMAP
• IMAP server: hades.srcf.net
• Security: STARTTLS (or SSL/TLS)
• Username: your SRCF username, e.g. spqr2 (not your email address)
• Password: your SRCF password (not your Raven password)

Some email apps such as Thunderbird will automatically configure this for you after you fill in your SRCF email address — provided that you have already enabled Hades email via the control panel.

If you’re looking for an app to get your Hades email on an Android phone, we suggest K-9 Mail.

Sending email

Outside of webmail, you can use SMTP to send emails from your @srcf.net address. Add these details to your client of choice:

• SMTP server: smtp.srcf.net
• Security: STARTTLS
• Port: 587
• Username: your SRCF username, e.g. spqr2 (not your email address)
• Password: your SRCF password (not your Raven password)

Mail forwarding

You have two options:

• Bypassing Hades: On the control panel you can configure your @srcf.net email address to forward mail to another address. This is the simplest option.
• Using Hades filters: You can add a filtering rule (see below) which forwards all your email elsewhere, with or without keeping a copy in your Hades mailbox.

Mail filtering

1. Log into Hades Webmail
2. Click ‘Settings’
3. Click ‘Filters’
4. Add a filter by clicking the ‘+’ button at the bottom of the ‘Filters’ panel
5. Choose a name for the filter, a set of conditions to match (e.g. ‘all messages’) and an action (e.g. ‘Move message to folder’)
6. Click ‘Save’

You can add as many filters as you want, and drag them around to change the order in which they are run. You can optionally have multiple filter sets, although only one of those can be active at once (for example you could have an alternate filter set, normally disabled, to handle your email when you are on holiday).

Alternatively, you can write your own Sieve script and upload it as a filter set: click the ‘+’ button at the bottom of the ‘Filter sets’ panel. (Note that Sieve filters use a different syntax to the .forward Exim filters available on pip, although the capabilities are similar.)

Backing up email

The SRCF does not guarantee to have backups of user data. You must take your own backups.

You might find an IMAP synchronisation tool such as isync (a.k.a. mbsync) useful. The Arch Wiki has a handy guide to setting up isync.

At times we might have disaster-recovery backups which include a snapshot of your mailbox. If you’ve lost data and your own backups have failed, try asking the sysadmins if we can help — but we might not be able to.

Last modified on Thursday Jan 5, 2023 by Richard Allitt