IMAP email access at SLAC is limited to the internal SLAC network. If you are offsite, you need to connect to VPN to use the IMAP protocol. Alternatively, you can use and configure the Owl plugin for Thunderbird. Owl allows Thunderbird to use the Outlook Web Access (OWA) protocol, which uses Duo two factor authentication. SLAC has a site license for the Owl plugin (for slac.stanford.edu email address).
For more information on the security reasons for restricting IMAP usage:
https://intranet.slac.stanford.edu/news/2019/07/reducing-risk-cyber-attacks-certain-email-protocols
Other ways to read email at SLAC for linux users include:
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/owl-for-exchange/
Open a terminal, install and/or update thunderbird to latest version by running these commands for Ubuntu:
sudo apt update sudo apt install thunderbird sudo apt upgrade thunderbird |
Or these commands for CentOS:
sudo yum clean all sudo yum install thunderbird sudo yum upgrade thunderbird |
Thunderbird also has downloads available for MacOS or Windows platforms. You can find download links on the Thunderbird website: https://www.thunderbird.net/
Start Thunderbird by typing 'thunderbird' in your terminal window:
thunderbird & |
Or double click on the application icon (eg, look in your applications menu/folder)
We have not verified the calendar integration possibilities with Thunderbird/Owl and the Outlook Calendar. The "lightening" Add-on does seem to have some integration with Owl (ie, it seems to be possible to at least view the Outlook calendar when Owl is configured). However, the purpose of Owl support at SLAC is to integration IMAP email and Outlook Web Access (there is no guarantee that calendar integration will work).
We did an evaluation of several products which offered some type of Outlook Web Access protocol integration with Linux.
Owl was chosen because of the popularity of Thunderbird, which is already being used by many linux users, and Thunderbird is already provided as a supported application from the major linux desktop distributions which are recommended at SLAC (Ubuntu, CentOS). We list the alternatives here for completeness, and you are welcome to try them if you do not like using Owl with Thunderbird for some reason.
hiri. https://www.hiri.com
Pros: Nice interface; easy to set up and use. Easy access and use of Calendar, Email, and Contacts.
Cons: Cannot view full email headers. Not many configurable settings/preferences. No recent software updates. No response from developers/company.
Note: there is a free trial, but after the trial, there is a per-user cost.
ExQuilla. https://www.exquilla.com/ (older version of Owl).
The first generation Exchange add-on for Thunderbird. Same developer as Owl (see above). This product uses older technology, but still may work.
Evolution-ews. Evolution did not seem to be as popular as Thunderbird. We found the interface to be of poor quality, and the configuration was complicated.