SENDPROG

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Updated: 28 December 85
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

sendprog - MMDF outbound generalized program channel

SYNOPSIS

sendprog (called by deliver)

DESCRIPTION

The generalized program outbound channel is part of the MMDF mail system. Sendprog is called directly by deliver. It follows the standard deliver/channel protocol and handles outbound traffic via some program specified in the channel table associated with the channel.

There are two ways the channel can be configured. In the first mode, the channel configuration string (`confstr=...') specifies the command to be used to send the mail with certain strings expanded to per-message information (see below). In the second mode, the conf string is null, and the address portion of the channel table (RHS) gives the command to send the mail. Again, certain strings can be expanded to per-message information.

The following strings can be expanded in command strings:

$(from)          expands to the from address
$(local)         expands to the local host name
$(to)            expands to the full addressee string
$(to.user)       expands to the user portion of addressee
$(to.host)       expands to the host portion of addressee
$(to.address)    expands to the address from channel table RHS
                 (only when confstr is non-null)

The following is a sample program channel description for the mmdftailor file if one were to use the program channel to interface to ACSNET system (untested to date):
MCHN           acsnet, show=``ACSNET Channel'', que=acsnet, tbl=acsnet,

              pgm=sendprog, mod=reg, ap=822,

              confstr="/usr/acsnet/sendfile -a mailer $(to.address)"

BUGS

This is a new channel and has not been widely tested, but will continue to be supported in future versions. In particular, the entry in the channel table may become the name of a ``configuration file'', describing the program, how to give mail to the program, and how to interpret the return codes.