E-Mail on C&CZ News

Science Mail Technical Update

Arnoud Thörig — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0100

Technical update for mail‑domain DNS administrators

What and why we are doing this

With the new setup we are renaming our mail‑component servers so that their names reflect the function they perform in the mail chain.

This change has no impact on end users, but it makes troubleshooting and future feature implementation easier because we can immediately identify the machine involved.

First step

We have renamed mx3 to inboundmx3. Because this is essentially only a DNS change, we have also updated all MX records we manage. Domains for which we provide mail but do not control the DNS must be updated by their own administrators.

Science Mail Update

Arnoud Thörig — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0100

Enhanced Email Security

We are pleased to announce we have completed the first step in the update to our email system. This will improve the security and reliability of your mail handling. As part of this upgrade, we have introduced new software at the start of our email flow (on the inbound MX servers). This advanced system now evaluates incoming emails to determine if they are legitimate.

If an email fails to meet the required standards or appears very suspicious, it will be blocked at the entry point, in accordance with RFC guidelines for mail transport. This is a crucial first step toward creating a safer and more secure email environment for everyone.

Science Mail Announcement

Arnoud Thörig — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0100

C&CZ was the first to implement e-mail (@sci.kun.nl) at the KUN (Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen), some 35 years ago. Some configurations we have used since then have not kept up with the changing landscape of e-mail implementations worldwide. In Dutch there’s a saying for this: “De wet van de remmende voorsprong”.

One of the major things that have changed over time is dealing with SPAM. For instance, there are now protocols that major e-mail players require and therefore became the de facto standard for email communication.