Fencepost Mail Settings
Logging in
If you have an account on the fencepost.gnu.org server, you will be able to login using the SSH key you provided via SSH. Replace USER with your username.
ssh [email protected]
If you are unsure about whether you should or should not have an account, see the accounts page for more details.
SMTP settings
fencepost.gnu.org is configured to accept authenticated SMTP connections on port 25 and 587. PLAIN and LOGIN are accepted, but only when STARTTLS is enabled. CRAM-MD5 is accepted regardless of the use of TLS. We recommend you always connect with STARTTLS so that the connection between your computer and fencepost is encrypted.
Password
You can set your POP3 and SMTP password with the
popauthcommand on fencepost. The password must contain at least one number or punctuation character and it must contain at least one lower case and one upper case character. It must be at least 8 characters long. Characters that are considered punctuation are as follows: !"\#$%&'()*+,\-./:;=>?@[\\\]^_`{|}~,
For more precise information, the password must match this regular expression to be used for SMTP:
((?=.*[[:digit:]])|(?=.*[[:punct:]]))(?=.*[[:lower:]])(?=.*[[:upper:]]).{8,}
The pwgen command is a good way to generate passwords that conform with the regular expression above.
In addition, the password many not contain your username.
When you set a password with popauth, the new password will be active immediately for POP3. However, it will take up to 5 minutes for your new password to become active for authenticated SMTP - if your password conforms to the rules outlined above.
You can also avoid using POP3 by setting a mail forward in /etc/aliases or ~/.forward.
IceDove/Thunderbird 3.1+ autoconfiguration
If you use IceDove/Thunderbird 3.1+, the POP3/SMTP settings for your @gnu.org account will be autodetected.
Manual configuration
POP3 server: fencepost.gnu.org
POP3 port: 995
POP3 settings: SSL/TLS
SMTP server: fencepost.gnu.org
SMTP port: 587
SMTP settings: STARTTLS
Make sure to enable authentication for both POP3 and SMTP. Use your e-mail address @gnu.org and your e-mail password for both. Your username should be entered without the "@gnu.org" part.
Additional Notes
- GMail does not support APOP, so you cannot use the GMail client to check your mail on fencepost
- If you are having trouble with authentication while sending email, please be sure that your password matches the regex provided above
- IMAP is not available on fencepost. We instead recommend moving your messages to your local machine.
SSL key fingerprints
The SSL certificate on fencepost are currently signed by Let's Encrypt.