CMU.EDU : A Mail Directory Service
 
What CMU.EDU is:
 
    CMU.EDU is a university-wide electronic mail directory service.
    Every person who has an account at any of the participating
    organizational computing facilities (currently Andrew, Computer
    Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Statistics, and the
    Software Engineering Institute are participating), automatically
    has an entry in the CMU.EDU database.  People (both internal and
    external to Carnegie Mellon) can now send mail to members of the
    Carnegie Mellon community using the centralized CMU.EDU address
    instead of having to know whether a person's account is, say, an
    Andrew or Computer Science issued account.
 
    On the other hand, this new service need not have any effect on
    you.  So, for example, if Harry Q. Bovik currently uses/advertises
    his address as bovik@cs.cmu.edu, he may continue to do so.
    Mail sent to this address will be handled as it has always been -
    in fact, CMU.EDU will not know or have anything to do with that
    mail.
 
CMU.EDU offers these services:
 
    Mail forwarding
    Name lookup (using the finger command)
    Ability to modify your own entry (for Carnegie Mellon users only)
    Ability to specify a "CMUname" (for Carnegie Mellon users only)
 
What does this mean to you?
 
    You can now send mail to anyone at Carnegie Mellon, regardless of
    what organization their account is in, by addressing it to:
 
	first_last@CMU.EDU		OR
	first.last@CMU.EDU		OR
	userid@CMU.EDU			OR
	CMUname+@CMU.EDU
 
    You can also use the finger command at CMU.EDU to examine the
    information listed for a given person.  To see what information is
    listed for a given person (including yourself) in the CMU.EDU
    database, type:
 
	finger first_last@CMU.EDU  	OR
	finger first.last@CMU.EDU	OR
	finger userid@CMU.EDU		OR
	finger CMUname+@CMU.EDU
 
    If you are a user at Carnegie Mellon, you can also choose your own
    "CMUname", which can serve as an email address at the CMU.EDU
    level that you may safely advertise to others.  See the section
    ``CMUnames'' for further information.
 
[The rest of this document is only relevant to users at Carnegie Mellon]
 
CMUnames
 
    When a person is first added to the CMU.EDU database, they may be
    addressed either by their name or one of their organizational user
    IDs.  It is, however, possible for there to be more than one
    person at the university with the same name.  Likewise, it is
    possible for the same user ID to mean different people on
    different systems.  For example, the user ID 'bovik' could be
    James P. Bovik at andrew.cmu.edu, as well as Harry Q. Bovik at
    cs.cmu.edu.
 
    Even if your name or user ID is not currently ambiguous, it is
    theoretically possible for someone else with the same name as you to
    arrive at the university at some later time.  When they get added to
    CMU.EDU, mail addressed to you (or them) at CMU.EDU would then be
    rejected and returned to the sender with a message stating that the
    address is ambiguous.  The rejection notice will contain a list of
    all possible matches for the address that was used,  allowing the
    sender to choose a non-ambiguous address to reach the person in
    question.
 
    In order to allow you to have a mail address at CMU.EDU that is
    guaranteed to be unique, CMU.EDU allows you to assign yourself a
    "CMUname."  CMUnames are assigned on a first-come first-served
    basis, governed by a set of selection rules, listed below.  When a
    user selects a CMUname, the program automatically adds a + to the
    name, so that a CMUname of smith@CMU.EDU becomes  smith+@CMU.EDU;
    when advertising your CMU.EDU address,  you should advertise it with
    the + sign to ensure successful mail delivery to you.   In the end,
    however, it is up to you to decide the style of CMU.EDU mail address
    that you prefer to advertise.  It is probably not a good idea to
    advertise your mail address as "lastname@CMU.EDU" or 
    "userid@CMU.EDU" (especially if you have a common last name or a
    user ID that might look like one).  In the vast majority of cases,
    though, advertising your mail address as simply 
    "first_last@CMU.EDU" will usually suffice to identify you
    unambiguously for mail purposes.  Some people prefer using this
    natural style of addressing to the artificial CMUname style of
    appending a special "+" character, even though natural names are by
    nature potentially ambiguous.  If it is important to you to
    advertise only a guaranteed unambiguous mail address so that none of
    your correspondents ever have to cope with ambiguous mail rejection
    messages, you may wish to advertise a CMUname style address   
    instead.
 
Selection Rules
 
    1.  If the CMUname choice matches one CMU.EDU entry uniquely, no one
    but that person can select that as his or her CMUname.  Otherwise an
    address that had been routing mail to a user would suddenly stop
    working.
 
        Example:  Jane Smithenheimer is the only match for
        "smithenheimer" at CMU.EDU.  Thus, only Jane can choose
        "smithenheimer" as her CMUname.  She would advertise her CMU.EDU
        address, on a business card, for example,  as
        smithenheimer+@cmu.edu.
 
    2.  If a CMUname choice matches one, and only one, organizational
    user ID, only that person with the matching organizational user ID
    may choose that CMUname.
 
        Example:  Joe Charger of the ECE department has the
        organizational user ID of charger@ece.cmu.edu and no one else
        has the user ID "charger", only Joe Charger may choose the
        CMUname charger.  He would then advertise his CMU.EDU address as
        charger+@cmu.edu.
 
    3.  If a CMUname choice matches two or more organizational user IDs,
    then no one is able to choose that CMUname without mutual agreement.
     One solution is to have the organizations involved come to a
    resolution, by either renaming or removing the conflicting user IDs
    (subject to local policies in various organizations).
 
        Example:  If two people have the user ID jones, Bob Jones in ECE
        and Jim Jones at the SEI; then no one can choose the CMUname
        jones.
 
    4.  Last names in the CMU.EDU database which do not match
    organizational User IDs, can only be chosen by people with that last
    name, on a first come first served basis.
 
        Example:  There are no organizational user IDs of smith; the
        first person with the last name of Smith who chooses that as a
        CMUname will receive it and then could advertise the CMU.EDU
        address smith+@cmu.edu.
 
    5.  If a CMUname choice does not match a user ID, last name or
    unacceptable name (see the last selection rule), that CMUname choice
    is available to anyone on a first come first served basis.
 
        Example:  There is no organizational user ID "jejones" and it
        matches no one's last name, so the CMUname "jejones" would
        be available to the first person to choose it.  That person would
        then be able to advertise the CMU address of jejones+@cmu.edu.
        All other things being equal, such a choice would be more
        reasonable for Janet Elaine Jones than Bill Bailey.  See the section,
        "Additional considerations when choosing a CMUname," below.
 
    6.  Academic Services reserves the right to remove inappropriate or
    misrepresentative CMUname selections.
 
    You will be notified immediately if you are unable to have the
    CMUname you choose for any of these reasons, and will be asked to
    make another selection.
 
    IMPORTANT NOTE:  To repeat our message about advertising your
    CMUname, the "+" is essential to the use of a CMUname.  Your
    correspondents must include it in the address if they wish to refer
    only to you, the holder of that CMUname, and not also to all those
    whose last names or login IDs might match that string without the
    "+".  For example, if our friend Smith chooses the CMUname "smith",
    he must advertise his CMU.EDU address as "smith+@cmu.edu" and his
    correspondents must use that address.  If he publishes as his
    CMU.EDU address just "smith@cmu.edu" or his correspondents send mail
    to just "smith@cmu.edu" then this address will match all the Smiths
    at Carnegie Mellon and will be flagged as ambiguous to the sender.
 
Additional considerations when choosing a CMUname
 
    Your selection of a CMUname is permanent.  The CMU.EDU Postmaster
    can remove your CMUname, but users themselves cannot change their
    CMUname.  Please make your choice with the same care that you would
    use in representing yourself on a business card, a resume, or a
    paper for a course or conference.  We highly recommend some form of
    your given name or your user ID.
 
    Once a CMUname has been selected, it is not available to anyone
    else.    Your choice affects not only you but others who might also
    want this CMUname.  Please be considerate.  Again, some form of your
    given name or your user ID is most appropriate.
 
    Your CMUname is published globally and people outside of Carnegie
    Mellon will send mail to your CMUname "@CMU.EDU".  Please make your
    choice in light of the fact that the entire address represents the
    University as well as yourself.
 
    A CMUname can contain up to 35 characters, is limited to
    alphanumerics, and must start with a letter.
 
Information for your entry in CMU.EDU
 
    Initially, the information for your entry in CMU.EDU is compiled
    from several sources:
 
    Your full name and mail forwarding information is derived from the
    current information from your primary account.  The primary
    account is generally the account where you read your mail.  So,
    for example, if you only have an Andrew account, that is your
    primary account.  On the other hand, if you have both an Andrew
    account and a Statistics account, and forward all your mail to
    your Statistics account, CMU.EDU considers the Statistics account
    your primary account.
 
    If you have accounts in more than one participating organizational
    computing facility, they are combined into one CMU.EDU entry when
    the last names are the same and either one account has its mail
    forwarded to the other or both accounts forward mail to the same
    place.
 
    Affiliation information is tracked by social security number; only
    Andrew accounts keep track of SSN's, so if you do not have an
    Andrew account (note that you may have an Andrew account as well
    as other accounts), you might not have any affiliation information
    listed.
 
 
Modifying your entry
 
    By telnetting to the CMU.EDU server, you can
 
	Assign a CMUname
	Set your mail forwarding
	Merge two entries that are both for you
	Get a CMU.EDU password
 
    To do any of these activities, type
 
	telnet cmu.edu
 
    and press Return.
 
    Once you are connected to the CMU.EDU server, you will be asked to
    tell the server who you are and then authenticate with the server
    (much as you do when you log into your account).  You will then be
    presented with your CMU.EDU entry, along with instructions to
    follow for modifying your entry.  Changes will take effect over night.
 
A word about Mail forwarding
 
    CMU.EDU normally uses the forwarding address that you have set on
    your "primary" account.  If you change your primary account's mail
    forwarding information, CMU.EDU will change its database
    accordingly; these changes may take up to a week to propagate from
    the organizational computing facility.
 
    If you explicitly change your mail forwarding address at the
    CMU.EDU server (by telnetting to cmu.edu, as explained above), it
    will no longer automatically change its database to reflect
    changes in the forwarding information set at your primary account.
    Any subsequent changes to the mail forwarding information on the
    CMU.EDU server will have to be made through the CMU.EDU
    server--again, by telnetting to cmu.edu.
 
    At no time will a change of mail forwarding information made at
    the CMU.EDU server affect the mail forwarding information of any
    of your accounts on organizational computing facilities.
 
Changes in your personal information
 
    There will no doubt be times when some of your personal
    information changes, such as a name change resulting from
    marriage/divorce, an affiliation change because of a change in
    jobs or major, etc.  While you cannot change this information
    directly via the CMU.EDU server, you can go through the "regular"
    channels (i.e., your organizational account administrator for name
    changes, or the Registrar's office or to your PAN administrator
    for affiliation changes) to have this information changed, which
    will in turn be picked up by the CMU.EDU server.
 
Problems with CMU.EDU
 
    If you have any problems or questions about information in the
    CMU.EDU database, send mail to Postmaster@CMU.EDU.