4. Forwarding mail, or what to do when you go on leave

        This section describes four methods that I know of for dealing with
electronic mail when you are away from your usual address. Not all of
them are available at all sites.

        (1) Submit a temporary change of address to the directory. This can
always be done, but is slow (up to three months delay), possibly resulting
in the loss of much mail.

        (2) Arrange to have mail forwarded. On a UNIX system you can set
this up yourself (type "man forward" for the manual entry). On other
systems you may have to have your system administrator do it for you.
This method is very convenient but requires having an account at the new
place before leaving the old place. You may also lose mail during the
return trip.

        (3) Use the "vacation" program (UNIX) or a similar program if your
system has one. The UNIX vacation program will automatically answer
incoming mail with a predetermined message. (Do "man vacation" for
details.) Possible messages could be "I will return on <date>" or "I
will be away until <date>; my temporary email address is <address>." On
a UNIX system you can set this up yourself, and also use it in
combination with (2).

        (4) Check mail on your permanent account by remote login. The big
advantage is that you don't have to change your address. Unfortunately,
there is may be a noticeable delay between the time you type a character
and the time it shows up on your screen. Furthermore, sometimes the delays
become very long, or sometimes you can't get through at all. If you are
primarily using methods (2) or (3), this alternative provides a way to
start or stop automatic forwarding or response by remote control. Many
computer systems now require ssh rather than telnet for security reasons,
but sometimes it is hard to find a ssh program on non UNIX machines.

        To find out more about what is possible on your particular system,
talk to your system manager.