• Introduction
• Using the Service
• Known Restrictions and Limitations
• Feedback and Reporting Problems
• FAQ

Introduction

The Webmail service provides full access to your inbox and mail folders via a simple interface. It can be used interchangeably with other methods of accessing your mail including Evolution, Kmail, Netscape, and Pine. However, you should only use one mail program at a time.

The Webmail service is not intended to be a replacement to Evolution or Pine, but an additional method of accessing your email. One of the main goals is to offer email access from off campus, when only a web browser is available.

You can use Mozilla, FireFox, Netscape, Opera, Internet Explorer, or any other web browser that supports JavaScript and cookies, to access the Webmail service.

This particular document focusses on the Webmail service based on a web email product called IMP (Internet Messaging Program) built using the HORDE (www.horde.org) framework. This name is used in the rest of this document.

At IITB there are other web-based interfaces available to your email account based on Squirrelmail, Hastymail, Ilohamail. Documentation for such systems may be available elsewhere.

Using the Service

To access the IMP Webmail service, enter the following URL:

http://imp.iitb.ac.in

This URL can be bookmarked, but do not attempt to bookmark any pages relating to the Webmail service as they may change between sessions. Right click on the above URL while using either Netscape or Internet Explorer and you will be able to add this to your bookmarks/favourites.

All Webmail Systems at IITB use LDAP username/password authentication to validate users.

When you have finished your Webmail session, it is essential that you click on the Logout button to terminate your connection to your inbox and mail folders and then exit from the browser. Closing down the Browser window alone is NOT sufficient and leaves your email session still active.

Known Restrictions and Limitations

At the present time:

• The facility to display HTML messages inline has been disabled, as tests showed that large messages caused problems. HTML messages can still be viewed by passing them to your web browser BUT you should be very careful about viewing unsolicited email such as spam/junk mail which may contain malicious characters and/or malicious scripts (using JavaScript for example).
• The address book cannot import group lists that you may have setup in another email client (Squirrelmail, Pine, etc). Groups have to be recreated within IMP.
• If you are composing a message and your session will timeout in 5 minutes, You will receive a popup warning to this effect. If you ignore or miss this warning, you will lose any composed text. CC Staff urge people who are composing mails that are urgent or important to use an off line text editor and either attach or copy/paste into a compose window.
• The maximum size of an individual mail message is 8 MB. When you enclose different attachments, they expand slightly from their original sizes. The mail envelope header also adds to the size. Accordingly, you are advised to restrict the length of the message and the size of the attachments to about 7 MB.

Feedback and Reporting Problems

CC Staff have developed a Frequently asked questions  or FAQ  page, which is based on our current experience and will be added to in light of feedback .

If you encounter any problems that aren't included in the Known Restrictions and Limitations or FAQ lists, then please report them to the Helpdesk. 

This document will be updated to reflect current progress/issues.