Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Computer and Media Service

Alias policy of HU

Email addresses at HU follow this rule set for format and usage, enforced and managed by the CMS. Applications for new addresses and changes to existing addresses have to follow these rules.

General requirements

• Allowed characters: lower case letters (US-ASCII), numbers, period, hyphen (minus)
  Attention: Upper and lower case are not differentiated in email addresses, and official addresses will always use lower case letters only.
• In the absence of any period or hyphen, requested addresses must have a minimum length of nine characters preceding the @ character.
• Periods or hyphens may not be positioned at the start or end of an email alias.
• Every email addresses must be unique in front of the @. The CMS ensures this during processing.

Personal HU accounts

• Every personal HU account may have exactly one email address.
• The general alias format is: firstname.familyname@...
• First name variations such as nicknames, initials, or preferred names are valid.
• The family name has to remain intact. In case of double names, at least one part has to be present in full.
• The last element in sequence has to be the family name.
• Fantasy names such as 'toaster1798@...' will not be registered as addresses.
• First name and family name are separated by periods, double names via hyphens.
  e.g.: 'mary-kate.horowitz-myers@...'
• Titles will not be included in email aliases.
• If a set of names matches an existing entry, generated email addresses are expanded with trailing numbers.
  e.g.: 'john.smith.1@... , john.smith.2@...'
• If desired, the CMS adjusts official email addresses when registered names change. The old addresses carrying the prior name will be silently continued alongside the new official address.
• Personal accounts may not carry descriptions of functions in the address (secretary's office, etc.)
• Students may request anonymous email addresses, in the format of: 'anonym.12345678@student.hu-berlin.de'
  Attention: This replaces the named address and cannot exist in parallel.
• Official addresses of student mailboxes follow the format of: '...@student.hu-berlin.de'

Special accounts

• Requested addresses must contain a reference of affiliation, ideally via institute shorthand, e.g.
  'cms.requestedaddress@...', 'requestedaddress.agrar@...',
  or by using a clear proper name, e.g. 'stadtgruen@...'
• Email addresses that speak to and for the whole university are not required to specify their affiliation.
• Similarly, unique proper names (well known conferences, projects, labs) may be requested without additional indicators.
• In case of requests of such nature, references, for example in the form of a website, are required.
• Years are allowed and useful additions for time-sensitive events, e.g. 'stata2027@...'
• Only one address can be the official address of an account.
• However, special accounts may carry additional addresses upon request.
• The combination of functions and the name of a person may only be requested by professors, directly and on their own. The role of a special account must be apparent. 'office.exampleprof.agrar@...' and 'chair.exampleprof.rewi@...' would satisfy this rule, whereas 'inbox.exampleprof@...' would not.
  Attention: Special accounts with an address carrying a name cannot be transferred to third parties.

Mailing lists & newsletters

• Lists follow both the general and special account rules.
• Official addresses follow the format of: '...@lists.hu-berlin.de'
  Attention: Deviating from this format results in transmission errors becoming lost to senders and recipients, among other issues.