The “New Account” option off the Main Menu adds a new account to the Folder Listing screen. Selecting this option results in a prompt to select the mail account type:
Adds an IMAP, or an SMAP account.
Adds a POP3 account.
Adds a “POP3 maildrop” account. With the regular POP3 account, the messages in the POP3 mailbox remain on the server, and Cone reads the contents of the messages on as-needed basis. With a POP3 maildrop account, all messages from the POP3 mailbox are immediately downloaded, then removed from the POP3 mailbox. Each time new mail is found, the new messages are downloaded, then removed from the server.
Some very old POP3 servers may only work in POP3 maildrop mode with Cone; they do not implement the “UIDL” POP3 protocol command which is necessary in order to keep the messages stored on the POP3 server. If an attempt to create a regular POP3 account fails because the server does not implement the “UIDL” command, create a POP3 maildrop account instead.
Adds a NetNews (Usenet) newsgroup account.
Creates a local mail account that includes the default
system mailbox. On system that use maildirs, this option
sets up a mail account for $HOME/Maildir, the maildir where
incoming mail is delivered by default.
On systems that do not use maildirs, this option finds
the local mailbox file in /var/spool/mail, or the location
specified by the MAIL
environment variable. Cone also prompts for the name of a
directory where mail folders should be created, relative
to the home directory.
In all cases, Cone also asks for the account's name, which goes on the Folder Listing screen.
Creates an extra mail account for local mail that's not tied to the default system maildirs. Cone prompts for the name of a directory where mail folders should be stored, then the account's name, which goes on the Folder Listing screen.
Selecting the option to create a new IMAP, POP3, or NetNews account displays the following screen. This screen also comes up after choosing to edit an existing IMAP/POP3/News account, from the Folder Listing screen:
ADD ACCOUNT CONE
Add IMAP Account
Account name: ______________________________________
Server: ______________________________________
Login: ______________________________________
Password: ______________________________________
[ ] Do not send password in clear text
[ ] Use an encrypted connection
[ Use certificate ]
[ LOGIN ]
[ CANCEL ]
When editing an existing account, the following fields will be initialized to contain the current account setting. When adding a new account, the following fields will be blank:
The name of the account, as shown on the Folder Listing screen.
The name of the mail server. Optionally, add a colon, “:”, and a decimal port number to specify a non-default port.
The account's login ID. Leave this field blank for NetNews servers that do not require passwords.
The login password. Leave this field blank for NetNews servers that do not require passwords.
If enabled, this setting prevents the password from being sent in the clear over the network. The mail server must be able to support secure password authentication, where the password is transmitted in an encrypted or scrambled form.
This field is not yet implemented for NetNews accounts.
Select this option to enable encryption.
This button enables authentication using an SSL certificate. This button appears only if at least one SSL certificate is already imported (see Certificates). Choosing this button pops up a dialog with a list of available certificates. Selecting a certificate from the list changes this button to read “Remove certificate”, and selecting it again removes the certificate selection. When using certificates, the login and the password fields may be left blank. If provided, and the server does not support authentication using SSL certificates, the traditional userid/password authentication is an automatic fallback.
SSL certificate authentication is implemented with IMAP and POP3 accounts only. It is not implemented for News accounts.
Highlight this button, and press ENTER to open the mail account.
Close this screen without adding or changing the account.
The server's name may be followed by one or more options of the following options, each one preceded with a slash:
/imapUse IMAP only, do not use SMAP. SMAP is an experimental protocol, currently implemented in the Courier mail server that offers some additional bells and whistles over IMAP. A mail account on Courier is set up as a normal IMAP account; after connecting Cone would normally select and use SMAP automatically. This option disables SMAP, and falls back to the IMAP protocol.
/nosslDisable encryption. Many mail servers have the ability to upgrade a plain text login to an encrypted connection. Even if “Use an encrypted connection” is not selected, Cone will upgrade an unencrypted connection to an encrypted connection, if the mail server supports this capability. This option disables the upgrade, and is mostly useful for debugging.
/novalidate-certDo not validate the server's SSL certificate when using an encrypted connection. Normally the mail server's SSL certificate must be validate when using an encrypted connection. The certificate's name must match the server's name, and the certificate must be signed by a trusted certificate authority.
The encrypted connection normally fails if the certificate cannot be validate. Validation requires that a list of trusted certificate authorities must be known and configured. It's simply impossible to know which certificate authorities are valid without an explicit list of valid, known, trusted, certificate authorities. If a trusted authority list is not configured, no certificate can be validated. If the server's certificate is a self-signed certificate (this is often used for testing purposes), or if it's not signed by a known authority, the encrypted connection fails.
This /novalidate-cert
option disables certificate validation. The encrypted
connection will be established even if the server's
certificate would otherwise be rejected.
This option is applicable even when an encrypted IMAP or POP3 connection is not explicitly requested. Many mail servers are capable of automatically upgrading unencrypted connections to a fully-encrypted connection. If a mail server claims to be able to use encryption, then there's no reason not to use it. The result is that all encryption certification requirements still apply even when encryption is not explicitly requested.
/debugioThis debugging option logs network traffic for this account to the standard error stream. Used for debugging only, when standard error is redirected to a file.
/timeout=NClose the connection if the IMAP/SMAP, POP3, or
NNTP server does not respond to a command in
N seconds
(default: 60).
/noop=NCheck for new messages in the currently open
IMAP/SMAP folder every N seconds (default:
600).
Most IMAP servers implement a protocol extension that reports new messages (and other changes to the folder's contents) immediately, without waiting for an explicit request to check for new mail.
This option is also used by POP3 folders, where it defaults to 60 seconds. POP3 does not provide for new mail notification; the option's only purpose is to prevent the POP3 server from disconnecting due to inactivity.
/autologout=NAutomatically close an NNTP connection after
N seconds
of inactivty (default: 300). The connection will be
automatically reestablished, when necessary.