UBMAIL
account maintenance

This is a brief note on how to maintain your account in UBMail Server. The UBMail account is used to keep your Mail directory (shared by all mail clients you may use, such as VMS Mail, Simeon and Pine), your WWW directory (where you will store all your files to be seen in the World Wide Web). You should login to UBMail, or telnet to ubmail.ubalt.edu to access your UBMail account. The system prompt to UBMail is $ (when you see it you know that you are at the VMS basic level of dialogue, like a DOS prompt in the PCs). Convention: {return} means press enter or return.

Creating a login.com file

The login.com is like an autoexec.bat in DOS. When you log in your account it is always executed. You should follow the instructions below to make your life easier in the VMS environment if you are used to the PC style commands. (remember {return} means press enter/return).

at the $ prompt type: CREATE LOGIN.COM {return}
type the following 3 lines to make the directory commands similar to the PC:
CD = = "SET DEFAULT" {return}
MD = = "CREATE/DIRECTORY" {return}
CP = = "SET PROTECTION=OWNER:RWED" {return}
type the following 4 lines to keep your directory clean of log and temp files:
$ IF F$MODE() .NES. "INTERACTIVE" THEN $EXIT {return}
$ IF F$SEARCH("UCX$FTPSERVER.LOG") .NES. "" THEN DELETE UCX$FTPSERVER.LOG;* {return}
$ IF F$SEARCH("*.TPU$JOURNAL") .NES. "" THEN DELETE *.TPU$JOURNAL;* {return}
$ IF F$SEARCH("*.TMP") .NES. "" THEN DELETE *.TMP;* <Ctrl-Z>

Creating a directory to store your mail

If you do not create a directory to store your mail you will not be able to see your regular files in your home directory at the UBMail Server. All you will see is a long list of files with strange names ended in .mai (your mail files) when you type dir (directory).
To create a mail directory, at the $ prompt, type: MAIL {return} , wait for the MAIL> prompt and type: SET MAIL_DIRECTORY [.MAIL] {return}. Your existing mail will be moved into the new mail directory and all new mail will go there, too. You return to the $ prompt typing EXIT {return} at the Mail> prompt.

Keeping your mail directory shipshape

After you delete your messages a reasonable number of times, your Mail directory will create empty spaces between messages that it does not recover with delete anymore. To regain this space you will need to do the following:

at the MAIL> prompt type: COMPRESS {return}
wait for the MAIL> prompt after messages generated by compress, and type EXIT {return}
at $ prompt type: CD [.MAIL] {return}
at the $ prompt type: del MAIL.OLD;1 {return}

Please note that the third step assumes that you created the login.com file described previously.

A note on directories in UBMail

Directory names in UBMail are enclosed in brackets [ ], e.g. [ABENTO]. Subdirectories are indicated by dots between the directory name and sub-directory name, as in [ABENTO.MAIL] -- sub-directory mail of the directory abento. In fact my directory is named [FACULTY.ABENTO], instead of only abento showing that I have a sub-directory in the faculty directory. Type at the $ prompt: DIR {return} and see the full name of your home directory.
Sub-directories in the same directory can be indicated as [.MAIL], to mean a sub-directory in a higher level directory. So if you want to create a directory WWW in your home directory (account) you can type: MD [.WWW] (again this assumes that you created the login.com file described previously). To create a sub-directory IMAGES in WWW, you can do one of two things:
1. type: MD [.WWW.IMAGES] {return} , or
2. type: CD [.WWW} {return} and then type: MD [.IMAGES] {return}
Finally, UBMAIL is not case sensitive for directory names. This means that if you type mail or MAIL, UBMail will see both as the same file or directory MAIL. To avoid problems with Mail client software (Pine and Simeon, particularly) always name folders in these clients using UPPER case, not lower case.

A note in log, journal and temp files in UBMail

A variety of programs like FTP, Mail clients, Editors, etc, conspire to create a series of junk files in your UBMail account, that end in .log, .journal, .tmp, or similar. The login.com file described previously takes care of deleting three types of files (UCX$FTPSERVER.LOG, .TPU$JOURNAL, and .TMP) left over from previous sessions, at login. You can modify login.com (add similar lines) for other types of files, other than the three above types. A special thanks to VJ for this hint, in addition to many other hints!

Deleting directories in UBMail

Be very careful in using this information. Once you do it, the directory and files are gone with the wind ...

You can know what directories you have by typing DIR *.dir at the $prompt.
If you try to use the delete command like DEL test.dir;1 -- where test.dir is the directory [.TEST] -- you will get the following error message:
%DELETE-W-FILNOTDEL, error deleting ...... TEST.DIR;1
-RMS-E-PRV, insufficient privilege or file protection violation
even if you have deleted all files in the test directory with the command: DEL *.*;* (again be very careful with this command, and the following ones).
The reason is that, for your own protection and security, when directories are created, you as the owner of the directory only receive RWE (read, write and execute) privileges, but not delete privilege to the directory. In order to delete a directory you need to change its protection. To delete a directory do (again be very careful) the following:
1. type: CP xxxx.dir (where xxxx is the name of the directory -- you need to have created login.com as described previously for this to work)
2. type: DEL xxxx.dir;n (where xxxx is the name of the directory as above, and n is the directory version, usually 1).

This page is maintained by Al Bento who can be reached at abento@ubmail.ubalt.edu. This page was last updated on September 1, 1996. Although we will attempt to keep this information accurate, we can not guarantee the accuracy of the information provided.