Frequently Asked Question
What email hosting services does GEWIS offer for fraternities or committees?
Last Updated 3 years ago
Fraternities and committees may handle a lot of confidential information via email and often use their own domain name for that.
At the same time, commercial email services are expensive and doing it yourself is not always that easy.
To make sure information is not stored with unreliable email providers, GEWIS hosts the email accounts for some of the fraternities and committees with their own domain name (i.e. not @gewis.nl mail).
This service is available to all current fraternities of GEWIS and excludes former fraternities. For committees, special arrangements need to be made in cooperation with the board.
The mail is backed up regularly, but special care must be taken: the backup file host is located in the same building as the main server. Hence, natural disasters may cause both copies of the data to be lost. Currently it is being investigated whether it is viable to keep a copy externally.
Another important task of the local admin is to make sure users are aware of the regulations that apply, in particular Regeling computergebruik 2012 and Regeling disciplinaire maatregelen.
For accountability reasons, the responsible person is the only person who is allowed to communicate changes that need to be done to the email environment. Changes in local admin need to be communicated either by the chairman of the organ or the current responsible person.
The mail hosting service differs from the other mail services in the sense that organs get a lot of freedom to create and update email addresses. This also comes with some responsibilities and to make sure the division is clear, an overview was created below.
¹ In limited cases where the domain name is paid for by GEWIS, the CBC will register the domain name
² Either the nameservers are set to the Cloudflare environment managed by the CBC, or the nameserver is managed by the organ itself. In the former case, the CBC manages DNS settings whereas in the second case, the
³ The CBC manages a quota for the entire domain to prevent misuse and make sure the offered services are not too expensive
⁴ The CBC is going to reset the password to an account if either we think or IMS thinks it is breached
⁵ The CBC supports the local admin with setting up their domain
At the same time, commercial email services are expensive and doing it yourself is not always that easy.
To make sure information is not stored with unreliable email providers, GEWIS hosts the email accounts for some of the fraternities and committees with their own domain name (i.e. not @gewis.nl mail).
This service is available to all current fraternities of GEWIS and excludes former fraternities. For committees, special arrangements need to be made in cooperation with the board.
What does the service entail?
In short: GEWIS allows an organ to use the mail infrastructure of GEWIS for their own domains. This infrastructure is managed by the CBC. The organ is allowed to create accounts on their own domain as they like. The service is offered with no SLA as to availability, but since the same systems are used for @gewis.nl email, it is likely that any outage will be resolved quickly.The mail is backed up regularly, but special care must be taken: the backup file host is located in the same building as the main server. Hence, natural disasters may cause both copies of the data to be lost. Currently it is being investigated whether it is viable to keep a copy externally.
What does the local admin do?
For each organ, one responsible person is appointed. He/she creates and manages mail accounts for the organ. This person also provides support for the users in the fraternity, but is in its turn supported by the CBC.Another important task of the local admin is to make sure users are aware of the regulations that apply, in particular Regeling computergebruik 2012 and Regeling disciplinaire maatregelen.
For accountability reasons, the responsible person is the only person who is allowed to communicate changes that need to be done to the email environment. Changes in local admin need to be communicated either by the chairman of the organ or the current responsible person.
What does the organ do and what does the CBC do?
The mail hosting service differs from the other mail services in the sense that organs get a lot of freedom to create and update email addresses. This also comes with some responsibilities and to make sure the division is clear, an overview was created below. | Organ | CBC | |
|---|---|---|
| Registering the domain name | X¹ | |
| Updating DNS settings² | ? | ? |
| Managing incoming and outgoing mail flow | X | |
| Keeping the mail server up to date | X | |
| Managing the spam filter | X | X |
| Creating and updating the local administrator | X | |
| Creating and updating email accounts (quota, permissions) | X | ³ |
| Creating and updating aliases | X | |
| Resetting email account passwords | X | ⁴ |
| Helping a user set up their email | X | ⁵ |
² Either the nameservers are set to the Cloudflare environment managed by the CBC, or the nameserver is managed by the organ itself. In the former case, the CBC manages DNS settings whereas in the second case, the
³ The CBC manages a quota for the entire domain to prevent misuse and make sure the offered services are not too expensive
⁴ The CBC is going to reset the password to an account if either we think or IMS thinks it is breached
⁵ The CBC supports the local admin with setting up their domain
Where is the email stored?
Email is stored on the same mail server as the @gewis.nl mail and is also backuped in the same frequency.Can I do X?
Maybe you can, maybe you can't. If you think something may not be allowed, please ask us first. Perhaps we need to make further arrangement.- If X includes sending spam or unsolicited email, the answer is no
- If X includes something that is not allowed by law or by any regulations from the TU/e (most notable Regeling computergebruik 2012 and Regeling disciplinaire maatregelen), the answer is no
- If X includes something that is not allowed by GEWIS regulations, the answer is no
- If X includes something that is technically not forbidden by any regulation, but is going to cause trouble for GEWIS or the CBC, the answer is no