UNH E-mail aliases are available for any member of the University community using an E-mail account within the UNH.EDU domain. This document describes what an E-mail alias is, the policies governing their creation and use, and how to create and manage an alias for your own UNH E-mail account.

 

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Frequently Asked Questions about E-mail Aliases

1. What's an E-mail alias?
2. How does an alias work?
3. How do I apply for an alias?
4. How can I get an alias that points to my off-campus E-mail address?
5. Can an alias help me separate my personal e-mail from my UNH business E-mail?
6. I already have an alias, how do I update it?
7. My name has changed, how do I change my alias?
8. How can I look-up an alias?
9. Why is it required that 'campus-wide' aliases must contain at least one period?

Don't see your question about aliases listed here? Then send e-mail to:

       Alias.Admin@unh.edu

which is, you guessed it, the alias for reaching the Alias Administrator.

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1. What's an e-mail alias?

An E-mail alias is a mechanism by which sending and receiving E-mail can be simplified. An alias is usually your name or the name of UNH department, program, or organization. Aliases such:

      Your.Name@alumni.unh.edu

and

      XYZ.Dept@unh.edu

are designed to be more informative and easier to remember than the typical computer log-in account name such as

      fml3@somecompsys.unh.edu

More importantly, if your actual log-in account or Internet service address should change, correspondents that use your alias need not be aware of this. By simply redirecting your alias to your new address, messages sent to your alias will continue to reach you.

There are two different classes of aliases that are available to the University community. Which you select depends upon your own or your organization's needs:

For students and alumni of UNH: The UNH Alumni Association offers an E-mail forwarding service. If you are a UNH student or alum, this service gives you a permanent E-mail address that can automatically forward messages to any Internet E-mail address you may own, on-campus or off. You are also given more flexibility in the selecting your alias name as compared with a 'campus-wide' alias (see below).

For UNH faculty, staff, departments, and student organizations: Computing & Information Services offers a campus-wide E-mail alias system. This service allows the creation of standardized, easy to read E-mail addresses for use on business cards, Web pages, directories, and the like. Any UNH affiliated organization or member of the University community may request a campus-wide alias, but such aliases must following established naming conventions and point only to local UNH E-mail addresses.

Any member of the University Community, with the restrictions mentioned above, may have either type of alias, or both. For example you could use your alumni alias for your personal E-mail address, and your campus-wide personal alias for your work related address.

2. How does an alias work?

When E-mail is sent to

      your.alias@unh.edu

the message is received by a system named unh.edu which knows to forward the message on to

      youraddr@somesys.unh.edu

The Alumni E-mail forwarding service also works in a similar fashion.

 

In order to encourage people to use your alias instead of your physical E-mail address, you will want your alias to be your return address when sending E-mail. You may need to configure your mail agent to use your alias in the From: or Reply-To: headers on outgoing messages to accomplish this. However, where appropriate, this is done automatically for you if your alias points to an E-mail account on one of the following UNH E-mail systems:

• CIS Unix
• cisvms
• Exchange (maple)
• Cooperative Extension
• Sponsored Research
• IOL

If you are not sure about your environment, contact your system administrator.

3. How do I apply for an alias?

There are four basic types of aliases available at UNH. Pick the one that's right for you.

• Alumni E-mail Address for Life -- If you are a UNH alum or student you may apply for a personal E-mail forwarding address which can be directed to any Internet E-mail address you own. Here's an example of a (fictitious) UNH alumni alias:

      B.Smith@alumni.unh.edu

  Please note that this service is provided by the University of New Hampshire Alumni Association.
  
  
  

• Personal Alias -- This service is designed for employees of UNH, but it is available to all members of the UNH community. So long as you have a UNH E-mail account, you may have a 'Personal Alias' that points to it. A Personal Alias always contains your family name and always has at least one period. Using some famous names, here are a few typical examples of what a Personal Alias looks like:

      Susan.B.Anthony@unh.edu
      Albert.Einstein@unh.edu
      E.B.White@unh.edu

  
  

• Support -- A Support Alias is a campus-wide alias that represents an E-mail contact point for a recognized University department or organization. Some (fictitious) examples of support aliases are:

      Phrenology.Dept@unh.edu
      Fugue.Office@unh.edu
      Jabberwocky.Program@unh.edu
      ABC.Conference.2001@unh.edu

  Descriptive information about the purpose of the alias is requested as part of the application process. (See also FAQ #5 below.)
  
  
  

• Private -- A Private Alias is a campus-wide alias that is specifically not be published in any directories. Generally such aliases are limited to internal departmental or support functions. Contact the Alias Admin for instructions on how to apply for a Private Alias.

4. How can I get an alias that points to my off-campus e-mail address?

As mentioned in FAQ #1 above, Alumni E-mail forwarding can be directed to any Internet address, but 'campus-wide' aliases may only be directed to an address within the unh.edu domain. We make this requirement to insure that this service is being provided only to members of the UNH community, without having to collect and verify personal information to confirm this. However there is no restriction to prevent a UNH E-mail account, and specifically a CIS Unix account, from pointing to an off-campus destination. In other words your alias can point to your on-campus address which in turn can forward to your off-campus address. And any member of the UNH community may have a CIS Unix account for the asking.

So the steps to having an alias that points off-campus via a cisunix address are:

• Apply for a CIS Unix account if you don't already have one.

• Set forwarding on your CIS Unix account to your off-campus address.

• Test the forwarding by sending a message directly to your cisunix address. Confirm that the message has arrived at your off-campus E-mail account.

• Apply for an alias that points to your CIS Unix address. A confirmation message will be sent to that address which should arrive at your off-campus mailbox. You may reply from your off-campus address to confirm the application.

Of course when you leave the University, your CIS Unix account will eventually be retired, and along with it your alias. If the alias is for an organization, it can simply be redirected to another member's own UNH E-mail address But if you are an alumnus of UNH and you want a personal alias for yourself, you should consider getting an Alumni Alias which can point directly to any E-mail address and you can keep it for life.

5. Can an alias help me separate my personal e-mail from my UNH business e-mail?

Possibly. A lot depends upon your particular E-mail client and the mail tools you have available. Typically the "To:" field of a message will reflect the actual address the message was sent to. This means that your mail program will often be able to identify messages that were sent to your alias as verses your actual E-mail address.

• If you are a Microsoft Exchange user, check the Outlook help facility on the subject of managing messages with rules.

• If you receive your E-mail on CIS Unix, see:

       http://pubpages.unh.edu/notes/support.howto.html

  for more information on how to manage messages using the tools available on that system.

6. I already have an alias, how do I update it?

If your alias ends with

   @alumni.unh.edu

go to the Alumni E-mail Forwarding page for more information. If your alias ends with

   @unh.edu

use the Alias Update Request form to submit an update request.

7. My name has changed, how do I change my alias?

If you have legally changed your name, you should first contact UNH Human Resources if you are a faculty or staff member, or contact the Registrar's Office if you are a student. You have to first make sure that the University in general knows about your new name before your 'computer identity' can be changed to match.

The next step is to contact the CIS Help Desk. Students, with a valid student ID card in hand, should go to the Dimond Academic Commons (DAC) located on Level 3 (Main Level), Dimond Library. Staff can start by calling the Help Desk at 862-4242 but please note that your name change needs to be reflected in the Human Resources system before we can change your computing IDs. There are may pieces of information that go into making up your 'computer identity', well beyond just updating your alias. The Help Desk will coordinate these changes between the various computer systems (CIS Unix, Exchange, aliases, etc.) to make sure all the necessary computer identifiers are updated.

We will notify you via E-mail when your new alias has been created. Of course one of the things we want to make sure of is that you will not miss any E-mail sent to you during the transition. To insure this we will point your old alias to your new one for at least 6 months. This means your original address will still deliver messages sent to it, giving people plenty of time to learn and start using your new address. At the end of the 6 months, your original alias is retired and any messages sent to it will bounce as an unknown address.

8. How can I look-up an alias?

To find the e-mail aliases for current and past students of UNH, see the Alumni Directory maintained by the UNH Alumni Association.

If you need help determining if you have personal alias or need more information about your alias, please contact the Alias Admin at the Alias.Admin@unh.edu mailbox.

9. Why is it required that 'campus-wide' aliases must contain at least one period?

A technical reason is because computer account names on CIS systems never have a period in them. This allows physical E-mail addresses and logical ones (aliases) to coexist in the University's global E-mail system without having problems with 'name collisions' or possible confusion.

But the best reason is because it helps make aliases clearer and easier to remember. The period is simply used wherever a space would appear in a name or phrase. By making an alias the full name of a person, department, or program, it is immediately clear who the alias is reaching. For example, given the E-mail address

         edc@somesys.unh.edu

do you know if sending a message to that address will reach the "Educational Development Center" or "Ed Chamberson"?

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Questions, comments, or suggestions about the info on this page? Please contact the Alias Admin at the Alias.Admin@unh.edu mailbox. (Which is, of course, an alias!)

More general info about E-mail at UNH can be found on the: www.email.unh.edu web pages. Also see the Alumni Online Services page for more information about all of the Internet services available to the UNH alumni community.