1 Introduction

New versions of this document will be periodically posted to comp.os.linux.announce, comp.answers, and news.answers. They will also be added to the various anonymous ftp sites who archive such information including sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO.

In addition, you should be generally able to find this document on the Linux WorldWideWeb home page at http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/linux.html and on my home page at http://www.halcyon.com/vince/welcome.html.

I am interested in any feedback, positive or negative, regarding the content of this document via e-mail. Definitely contact me if you find errors or obvious omissions.

I read, but do not necessarily respond to, all e-mail I receive. Requests for enhancements will be considered and acted upon based on that day's combination of available time, merit of the request, and daily blood pressure :-)

Flames will quietly go to /dev/null so don't bother.

Feedback concerning the actual format of the document should go to the HOWTO coordinator - Matt Welsh (mdw@sunsite.unc.edu).

The Mail-HOWTO is copyrighted (c)1994 Vince Skahan.

A verbatim copy may be reproduced or distributed in any medium physical or electronic without permission of the author. Translations are similarly permitted without express permission if it includes a notice on who translated it.

Short quotes may be used without prior consent by the author. Derivative work and partial distributions of the Mail-HOWTO must be accompanied with either a verbatim copy of this file or a pointer to the verbatim copy.

Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would like to be notified of any such distributions.

In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to redistribute the HOWTOs.

We further want that ALL information provided in the HOWTOS is disseminated. If you have questions, please contact Matt Welsh, the Linux HOWTO coordinator, at mdw@sunsite.unc.edu.

Of course, I disavow any potential liability for the contents of this document. Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this document is entirely at your own risk.

LINUX HOWTO Documents:

There is plenty of exceptional material provided in the other Linux HOWTO documents and from the Linux DOC project. In particular, you might want to take a look at the following:

• the Serial Communications HOWTO
• the Ethernet HOWTO
• the Linux Networking Administrators' Guide

USENET:

           comp.mail.elm           the ELM mail system.
           comp.mail.mh            The Rand Message Handling system.
           comp.mail.mime          Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.
           comp.mail.misc          General discussions about computer mail.
           comp.mail.multi-media   Multimedia Mail.
           comp.mail.mush          The Mail User's Shell (MUSH).
           comp.mail.sendmail      the BSD sendmail agent.
           comp.mail.smail         the smail mail agent.
           comp.mail.uucp          Mail in the uucp environment.

Books

The following is a non-inclusive set of books that will help...

• "Managing UUCP and USENET" from O'Reilly and Associates is in my opinion the best book out there for figuring out the programs and protocols involved in being a USENET site.
• "Unix Communications" from The Waite Group contains a nice description of all the pieces (and more) and how they fit together.
• "Sendmail" from O'Reilly and Associates looks to be the definitive reference on sendmail-v8 and sendmail+IDA. It's a "must have" for anybody hoping to make sense out of sendmail without bleeding in the process.
• "The Internet Complete Reference" from Osborne is a fine reference book that explains the various services available on Internet and is a great source for information on news, mail, and various other Internet resources.
• "The Linux Networking Administrators' Guide" from Olaf Kirch of the Linux DOC Project is available on the net and is also published by (at least) O'Reilly and SSC. It makes a fine one-stop shopping to learn about everything you ever imagined you'd need to know about Unix networking.

There is nothing "special" about configuring and running mail under Linux (any more). Accordingly, you almost certainly do *NOT* want to be posting generic mail-related questions to the comp.os.linux.* newsgroups.

Unless your posting is truly Linux-specific (ie, "please tell me what routers are already compiled into the SLS1.03 version of smail3.1.28") you should be asking your questions in one of the newsgroups or mailing lists referenced above.

Let me repeat that.

There is virtually no reason to post anything mail-related in the comp.os.linux hierarchy any more. There are existing newsgroups in the comp.mail.* hierarchy to handle *ALL* your questions.

IF YOU POST TO COMP.OS.LINUX.* FOR NON-LINUX-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, YOU ARE LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACE FOR HELP. THE ELECTRONIC MAIL EXPERTS HANG OUT IN THE PLACES INDICATED ABOVE AND GENERALLY DO NOT RUN LINUX.

POSTING TO THE LINUX HIERARCHY FOR NON-LINUX-SPECIFIC QUESTIONS WASTES YOUR TIME AND EVERYBODY ELSE'S...AND IT FREQUENTLY DELAYS YOU FROM GETTING THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION.