Email on ISG Blog · D-MATH

Mutt with OAuth2 configuration

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0200

For instance this works for outlook.com accounts and also for ethz.ch accounts which are already in “Exchange Online”.

Prerequisites

Install GnuPG

OAuth works with secret tokens and these need to be encripted with GnuPG; install it as follow:

# Fedora Linux
sudo dnf install gnupg2
# Ubuntu Linux
sudo apt-get install gnupg
# macOS with MacPorts
sudo port install gnupg2
# macOS with Homebrew
sudo brew install gnupg

Generate a key pair

gpg --full-generate-key

Please select what kind of key you want:
 (9) ECC (sign and encrypt) *default*
your selection? <--------------------------------------- ENTER

Please select which elliptic curve you want:
 (1) Curve 25519 *default*
Your selection? <--------------------------------------- ENTER

Please specify how long the key should be valid.
 0 = key does not expire
Key is valid for? (0) <--------------------------------- ENTER
Key does not expire at all
Is this correct? (y/N) y <------------------------------ y + ENTER

GnuPG needs to construct a user ID to identify your key.

Real name: Michele Marcionelli <------------------------ Your name + ENTER
Email address: mima-test@ethz.ch <---------------------- Your email + ENTER
Comment: <---------------------------------------------- ENTER

Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? <--- O + ENTER

Enter a passphare to protect you new key: ********* <--- Password + ENTER (twice)

IMPORTANT: do not forget this password; you are going to use it every time that you start mutt!

New Mailserver – Exchange Online (EXO)

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 12:00:00 +0200

All the accounts of D-MATH members are going to be migrated to the Microsoft cloud in the week of October 21 – 25, 2024.

This means that all the mail accounts will have to be reconfigured, i.e. the old mail account has to be deleted from your mail application and then the new account has to be added. You’ll find links on how to do that below.

The new address for webmail is: https://outlook.office.com

Mail Certificate

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 08:46:54 +0200

The following official ETH documentation describes how to order and configure a new mail certificate:

https://unlimited.ethz.ch/en/help/certen/mail-certificate

If you use other e-mail clients that aren’t documented, please contact us – for example, below is a step-by-step guide for the Evolution Mail Client for Linux.

Important note for students

We issue e-mail certificates only to D-MATH employees (excluding teaching assistants!), and only to D-MATH students who have a good reason and whose request is supported by a D-MATH professor.

Archive e-mails

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 08:42:19 +0200

Read here the official documentation about the Mail Archive to also understand when and which e-mail will be automatically archived.

Keeping your mailbox small by deleting old e-mails, particularly large or duplicate e-mails will increase the speed of access to it. For this reason and despite the Mail Archive we recommend to do a copy (best on the NAS) of the e-mails before you delete them with your e-mail client. Here below we will explain how to export single e-mails and whole mailboxes; unfortunately the procedure and/or the result are different depending on the e-mail clients used. For this reason we will focus on Outlook for Mac, Mac Mail and Thunderbird. Sadly this isn’t possible with OWA (webmail). Moreover we have a dedicated post for Evolution (e-mail, calendar and address book client for Linux).

Accessing a shared mailbox or calendar

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:31:27 +0100

If several people need to access the same mailbox – for example, for a secretariat, a group organiser or a project – you need a so-called shared mailbox. To get one, please contact us.

Accessing via webmail

This is the simplest way to access a shared mailbox. Here there are 2 ways:

Way 1: Open the shared mailbox separately

Login to webmail https://outlook.office.com with your account
Click on the person symbol on the top-right
Then click on “Open another mailbox”
Search for the shared account (ex. by entering the e-mail address) and click on “Open”

Home office for D-MATH members

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 08:39:52 +0100

We explain below what you have to do to be able to work efficiently from your home, for instance how to set up a secure network connection to the ETH Zurich using VPN (eg. to access ETHIS, electronic resources like journals, file shares, …), how to access your e-mails, your files and a virtual linux desktop.

VPN – Secure Network Connection to the ETH

You can set up a secure network connection to the ETH Zurich by connecting to the VPN server using a VPN client. You find all information here:

Address Book

Fri, 10 May 2024 15:22:29 +0200

Below is a description of how to configure your Thunderbird address book with Active Directory (AD).

The information that you need is the following:

Server Address: d.ethz.ch Server Port: 636 with SSL Search Base DN: DC=d,DC=ethz,DC=ch Bind DN: < your-eth-username>@ethz.ch Search filter: ( &(objectclass=organizationalPerson)(ou=*))

Important: Note that this AD Server is only reachable from ETH Networks (incl. VPN).

Configuration for Thunderbird

Open the Settings, select the “Composing”-tab and then search for “Addressing”. Check the “Directory Server” and click on “Edit Directories…” as illustrated in the following image:

Linux (Evolution) local mail archive

Wed, 17 May 2023 11:01:41 +0200

This describes how to create a local folder in which you can move emails, which will still be available in the evolution mail client. So the mails will be removed from the mailserver and saved into a folder, which you have to backup.

Requirements:

You already use evolution as your mail client
You make backups of your local files and folders

First create a folder in the filesystem, which will hold your mails:

Mailing-Lists of D-MATH

Wed, 17 May 2023 10:39:31 +0200

All mailing-lists are viewable in a convenient way with a dynamic visualisation tool that represents the mail structure with a tree layout.

URL: https://isg.math.ethz.ch/mailinglists

mailing-lists

click on the name of a list to expand or to collapse the sub-tree
double-click on the name of a list to show only that list
click on the name of a person to get more information (in a box on the right side)

Abbreviations

a-	assistants (:= phd- + pdoc-)
d-	lecturers (Dozierende), not professors
fim	Forschungsinstitut für Mathematik (Institute for Mathematical Research)
g1,g3-g6	Group 1, Group 3 – Group 6
h-	tutorial assistants (Hilfsassistenten)
ifor	Institute for Operations Research
p-	professors (not guest!)
pd-	Privatdozenten
pdoc-	postdocs
phd-	PhD Students
r-	retired professors and emeriti
s-	secretaries
sam	Seminar for Applied Mathematics
stat	Seminar for Statistics