Setting up Mac Mail.app to work with NCSA's email setup

Prerequisites:

It is assumed that you are using the following when using this documentation:

Mac OS X 10.3.x
Mac Mail.app 1.3.x
An active NCSA kerberos account

1. Start the Mail.app Program

Locate the Mail program either from your dock menu or from the Applications folder in the Finder.
When you start Mail it will open a Welcome configuration screen if it isn't yet configured. You can enter the following information into this Welcome screen:

Full Name: (your name as you'd like it displayed in email)
Email Address: (your NCSA email address)
Incoming Mail Server: pop.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Account Type: POP
User Name: (your NCSA kerberos username)
Password: (leave blank)
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.ncsa.uiuc.edu

Select the OK button to continue to open the Mail program.

2. Open Mail Preferences

Before attempting to "Get Mail", you need to pull up the Mail Preferences window to make some account changes. You can access the Preferences window by choosing Preferences from under the Mail menu.

3. Setting Account Preferences

At the top of the Preferences window, choose the Accounts icon or tab. This will display your accounts that are configured for use with the Mail application. You should see the account that we originally configured in step 1, and selecting this account should display the same information that we entered back in step 1.

Leave the password field blank.

4. Setting Advanced Account Preferences

Within the Accounts Preferences window, choose the Advanced tab toward the top, along the right side of the screen.

Check the Use SSL option and confirm that the Authentication is set to Password.

That's all the more configuration of the preferences that is necessary. You can now close the Preferences window.

5. Check Your Mail

Now it's time to try checking your mail to confirm your Preferences are set correctly. To download your mail choose the Get Mail option from the menu bar or from under the Messages menu.

A popup window should appear where you can enter your kerberos password. Enter your password and then press the OK button.

6. SSL Verification Notice

NCSA has created its own secure certificate to encrypt your mail as it is downloaded from the server. You can choose the Show certificate button to confirm review the certificate. To use NCSA's SSL certificate and be able to download your email, you'll need to press the Continue button. (We'll fix this notice in the next step so that it won't alert you each time you start up the Mail application and check your email.)

After clicking Continue your email should begin transferring. Once downloaded the email should appear in your inbox.

7. Trusting NCSA's Root SSL Certificate

NCSA has created its own secure certificate to encrypt your mail as it is downloaded from the server. By default only a few commercial certificate authorities (Thawte, Verisign, etc.) are configured by OS X to be trusted. You need to add NCSA's root certificate to the keychain:

Download and save the NCSA Root Certificate to your computer: http://ca.ncsa.uiuc.edu/4a6cd8b1.0
You may need to rename this so that it has a file extension of ".crt" or ".cer".
Open the Utilities folder in the Applications folder on your computer and locate the Keychain Access application. You do not need to start Keychain Access.
Drag the NCSA root certificate from step a above to the Keychain Access application icon. Root certificates must be installed one at a time.
In the resulting Add Certificates dialog box, click X509 Anchors, and then click OK.

You don't need to have the certificate installed for pop.ncsa.uiuc.edu.