During the course of this morning we will be publishing SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records for @ru.ac.za and @campus.ru.ac.za e-mail addresses. The idea of SPF is to allow remote mail servers to be able to authenticate the envelope sender of a message, thus reduce the possibility of forged sender addresses.
The SPF records we've chosen for Rhodes are fairly liberal; they tell recipients of e-mail from an @ru.ac.za or @campus.ru.ac.za that they should accept mail from any mail transport agents, but should subject any mail transport agents that aren't at Rhodes to a bit more scrutiny. The records will remain like this for at least six months, and will likely only be reviewed during the second half of next year.
One of the implications of this change is that users who make use of their @ru.ac.za or @campus.ru.ac.za e-mail addresses outside of Rhodes (for instance on a laptop) must now make use of authenticated submission (cf http://noticeboard.ru.ac.za/post.5518701). E-mail sent with an @ru.ac.za or @campus.ru.ac.za envelope sender that originates from anywhere other than Rhodes' mail servers will eventually be automatically failed by the recipient.
Computers that are only ever used to send e-mail from within Rhodes (e.g. desktop machines) can still make use of un-authenticated submission as they have in the past.
Please contact the User Support Help Desk if you need information on configuring your e-mail client to do authenticated submission.