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- From: MMDF FAQ Maintainer <mmdf-faq@irvine.com>
- Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.unix.sco.misc,comp.answers,news.answers
- Subject: The MMDF Frequently Asked Questions List (FAQ)
- Supersedes: <mmdf-faq_907569001@irvine.com>
- Followup-To: comp.mail.misc
- Date: 5 Nov 1998 07:30:07 GMT
- Organization: Irvine Compiler Corporation - Irvine, CA, USA
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- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
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- Summary: This document contains answers to frequently asked
- questions about MMDF, the Multi-channel Memo Distribution
- Facility, a popular MTA.
- Content-Description: MMDF FAQ $Revision: 1.11 $
- Originator: jsweet@flash.irvine.com
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.mail.misc:46860 comp.unix.sco.misc:73198 comp.answers:33727 news.answers:143727
-
- Archive-Name: mail/mmdf-faq/part1
- Version: $Id: mmdf,v 1.11 1998/11/04 22:37:32 jsweet Rel $
- Posting-Frequency: monthly
- X-Comment: There is only one part to the MMDF FAQ at this time.
-
- ==============================================
- The MMDF Frequently Asked Questions List (FAQ)
- ==============================================
-
- Overview
- --------
-
- This is the Frequently Asked Questions document about MMDF, the
- Multi-channel Memo Distribution Facility, a popular mail transport
- agent (MTA).
-
- Table of Contents
- -----------------
-
- 1) Introduction
- 1.1) Conventions
- 1.2) Where can I get the MMDF FAQ?
-
- 2) What is MMDF?
- 2.1) How MMDF is used
- 2.2) Where to get MMDF
- 2.3) A brief history of MMDF
- 2.4) Glossary
-
- 3) User-Level Questions
-
- 4) Administrator-Level Questions
-
- 5) Miscellaneous Questions and Gotchas
-
- 6) An MMDF Bibliography
-
- 7) Other Resources
- 7.1) Free Software
- 7.2) Commercial Software
-
- 8) Authorship
- 8.1) Acknowledgements
- 8.2) Permissions
-
- --
-
- 1) Introduction
- ---------------
-
- 1.1) Conventions
-
- - Direct quotations begin with an attribution in a standard format,
- and are indented by four spaces.
-
-
- - Pointers to resources available via the Internet, such as references
- to FTPable goodies, appear in WWW URL format. URLs beginning with
- "ftp:" refer to FTP sites. For example:
-
- ftp://domain.name/path/to/package
-
- Those with FTP access, but without WWW access, may treat such
- references as follows:
-
- 1. Log into host domain.name using anonymous FTP
- 2. Look for /path/to/package
-
- An FTP reference usually lists only the distribution site; please
- try your nearest FTP archive first. Archie may be of some help
- here.
-
- Here is a brief summary of some common URL prefixes:
-
- http: refers to a WWW server
- gopher: refers to a gopher server
- ftp: refers to an anonymous FTP server
- mailto: refers to an Internet e-mail address
- news: refers to a USENET news group
-
- Internet browsing tools, such as Mosaic, know about URLs.
-
-
- - You'll occasionally see text in braces, like this.
-
- { Here is some example meta-text. }
-
- Sometimes, this indicates a place where information is missing, or
- where the information may be unreliable, or where major changes are
- planned in the near future. You can ignore these if you're just
- looking for information. But if you can help fill in the gaps, and
- you want to achieve fame, fortune, and your name at the bottom of
- this FAQ, please send e-mail to the maintainer.
- --
-
- 1.2) Where can I get the MMDF FAQ?
-
-
- - The MMDF FAQ is posted monthly to the MMDF2 mailing list
- (mailto:mmdf2-request@a.cs.okstate.edu) and to these USENET
- newsgroups: comp.mail.misc, comp.unix.sco.misc, comp.answers,
- and news.answers.
-
- An archive source for old MMDF2 list messages is available at this
- URL:
-
- http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf
-
-
- - Many sites archive news.answers postings, including these:
-
- ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.answers/mail/mmdf-faq/
- ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/mail/mmdf-faq/
-
- If possible, please try to find a closer site; for example, by
- asking archie for "mmdf-faq". Alternatively, use WWW search
- engines to look for the MMDF FAQ.
-
-
- - HTML versions of the MMDF FAQ may be found at these URLs:
-
- http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/mail/mmdf-faq/.html
- http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/mmdf.html
-
-
- - If you are reading this FAQ via some fixed medium such as hardcopy
- or CD-ROM, please try to obtain the latest edition from the net
- instead.
-
-
- - There is also a Supplement to the MMDF Frequently Asked Questions
- List at this URL:
-
- http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf
-
- --
-
- 2) What is MMDF?
- ----------------
-
- MMDF is the Multi-channel Memo Distribution Facility, a popular mail
- transport agent (MTA) for UNIX.
-
- Strong points of MMDF include:
-
- - Native user-level mail delivery control (".maildelivery").
- - Ability to turn up and down logging/debugging levels on the fly.
- - Authorization and permission checking.
- - Mail blocking based on from whom it came, how it got there,
- and to whom it is going.
- - Modularity: it's relatively easy to add new transport and
- translation channels for special e-mail gateways.
- - High capacity: it's designed to process very large message flows
- and can efficiently handle very large message queues.
-
- MMDF may have special appeal to persons in the UK, in that MMDF knows
- how to handle mail addresses in the UK-endian order,
- e.g. "edu.okstate.cs.a", as well as in the more widespread format,
- e.g. "a.cs.okstate.edu".
-
- MMDF is the standard mail system on at least one UNIX implementation,
- SCO UNIX. However, MMDF does not enjoy deployment as widespread as
- some other MTAs, such as sendmail. This is partly because, as
- Marshall Rose says in his book, _The Internet Message_, MMDF suffers
- from a tyranny of complexity: it requires configurations of many
- different files and daemons. In contrast, sendmail uses one daemon
- and one central configuration file.
-
- Sendmail, on the other hand, has its own set of disadvantages, and in
- many (if not most) implementations sendmail is not nearly as correct,
- secure, modular, or robust a message transfer agent as is MMDF.
- Sendmail was once compared by one old Internet hand to "those killer
- bees that escaped from the laboratory--and now they're everywhere and
- you can't get rid of 'em". Sendmail is still widely disparaged by
- experienced mail system administrators, although perhaps less
- deservedly so now than in the past.
-
- --
-
- 2.1) How MMDF is used
-
- MMDF works on the principle of passing messages between incoming and
- outgoing communications channels.
-
- In MMDF, a channel is typically implemented as a program for accepting
- messages from a Mail User Agent, say, via SMTP, or for delivering
- messages to a local mailbox file or to another host. (In sendmail
- parlance, these are called "mailers".)
-
- MMDF is typically run by starting up a set of persistent daemons named
- "deliver", each daemon managing delivery to a different channel, or to
- a set of channels. Other daemons are also involved, such as "smtpd",
- which monitors the SMTP port, and arranges for submissions and
- deliveries via SMTP.
-
- Here is a UNIX "ps" snapshot of MMDF processes running at a relatively
- simply-configured Internet site, including SMTP, POP, "delay",
- "local", and "list" channels, as well as one local relay channel named
- "laurel":
-
- UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME COMMAND
- mmdf 8306 1 0 Jan 16 ? 0:07 lib/deliver -b -T120 -clocal
- mmdf 154 1 0 Dec 8 ? 0:11 lib/deliver -b -T120 -csmtp
- mmdf 155 1 0 Dec 8 ? 2:34 lib/deliver -b -T120 -cpop
- mmdf 156 1 0 Dec 8 ? 0:13 lib/deliver -b -T120 -clist
- mmdf 157 1 0 Dec 8 ? 0:10 lib/deliver -b -T120 -claurel
- mmdf 8338 1 0 Jan 16 ? 0:02 lib/deliver -b -T300 -cdelay
- root 152 1 0 Dec 8 ? 0:44 chans/smtpd -n 16 chans/smtpsrvr smtp,local
-
- Channels are managed by a set of configuration files, aka "tables",
- one or more per channel. Address rewriting is done according to a set
- of compiled-in rules, configured by each channel's table. The table
- formats themselves are relatively simple; understanding their effects
- may not be so simple.
-
- Because the stock version of MMDF's documentation was written when the
- Internet DNS was brand-new, it is somewhat vague or diffuse on the
- subject of specific configurations for typical modern Internet e-mail
- sites. The closest match to a typical Internet site's configuration
- in the MMDF 2.43 source release is in the samples/bbn directory.
-
- The current MMDF source release is otherwise tragically short of
- working configuration examples for use in today's Internet, in which
- DNS lookups may time out or provide bad information, maildrops may
- exist on temporarily unavailable NFS-mounted directories, and where
- other gotchas may provide general interference in the smooth operation
- of your mail system. This FAQ is one place to find help. Appeals to
- the MMDF2 list can also yield helpful information.
-
- Your best bet for understanding how to set up MMDF is to look at the
- sample configurations and an already-running configuration. Reading
- all of the available documentation is also a must (see the doc/
- subdirectory in the MMDF source distribution). See also section 6
- of this FAQ for a list of other materials.
-
- --
-
- 2.2) Where to get MMDF
-
- At present there is no central authority that coordinates new releases
- of the publicly available MMDF source tree. However, the nearest
- claimant to being the official, latest, MMDF source release is version
- 2.44 from Universitaet Kaiserslautern.
-
- The previously generally recognized baseline release of MMDF was
- version 2.43 from Oklahoma State University, described below.
-
- SCO's version of MMDF for SCO Unix is proprietary--i.e. you can't get
- the source code for it. However, there have been some hints that SCO
- might someday release their modified MMDF sources to the world after
- some possibly proprietary or copyrighted elements from SCO's
- Microsoft-related era have been removed.
-
- The following is a list of publicly available source trees for MMDF.
-
- ----
-
- What: MMDF 2.44 from Universitaet Kaiserslautern
- Where: http://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/ftp/pub/Sources/mail+news/mmdf/mmdf-2.44a.tar
- ftp://www.mathematik.uni-kl.de/pub/Sources/mail+news/mmdf/mmdf-2.44a.tar
- Comments:
-
- This version is based on the work-in-progress MMDF (2.43+) source tree
- from Oklahoma State University.
-
- [ Kai Krueger <krueger@mathematik.uni-kl.de> 2-June-1998 ]
-
- MMDF II rel. 44 is now available for alpha testing since June 1st.
-
- This release mainly consists of cleanups. But there are also some
- new features that were important at our site.
- - configure may now be used for setting system dependent compile
- time options. These have been changed to feature dependent
- switches.
- - Files which existed in multiple versions ,like e.g. src/smtp/smtpd.*.c,
- lib/table/tb_ns.*.c, lib/util/lk_lock.*.c, have been cleaned up.
- - support for header lines longer than 256 characters
- - 8-bit clean transfer of E-mails (compile time option, default: on)
- - removal of routing information in the envelope "mail from:" lines
- (compile time option, default: on)
- - use of the tcpd/identd-package, if libwrap.a and tcpd.h exist
- (compile time option, default: on)
- - possibility to use gdbm, if dbm and ndbm are not available.
- Of course you can always use sequential tables, as before.
- - tables can now be accessed via NIS/NIS+ (compile time option,
- default: off)
- - possibility to change location of the tables mailids and users
- in mmdftailor (compile time option, default: off)
- - additional information, like e.g. real hostname, real ip-address,
- in the Received: line (run time option in mmdftailor)
- = no cleanups done on uip/ucbmail and uip/unsupported
-
- The new release has already been tested on the following architectures:
- + HP 9000/780 : HP-UX 10.20 (development package C compiler)
- + HP 9000/715 : HP-UX 9.05 (development package C compiler)
- + PC : Linux RedHat 4.2 (gcc-2.7.2, libc > 5.4.30)
- libc 4.6 - 5.3 do not work (not a problem of mmdf!)
- + Sun Sparc Ultra 2: Solaris 2.5.1 ()
- + Sun Sparc 10 : Solaris 2.4 (gcc-2.6.3)
-
- We would be grateful, if some of you who have access to machines of
- different type of operating system would also test this release.
-
- Please send reports, bugs and comments to:
- krueger@mathematik.uni-kl.de
-
- ----
-
- What: MMDF 2.43 base from Oklahoma State University
- Where: ftp://a.cs.okstate.edu:/pub/mmdf-2.43.tar.Z
- Comments:
-
- This is the previous long-standing base release of 2.43 MMDF. This
- was the core version of MMDF, maintained by Mark J. Vasoll, formerly
- Senior Software Specialist, Oklahoma State University.
-
- ----
-
- What: the work-in-progress MMDF (2.43+) source
- Where: ftp://a.cs.okstate.edu:/pub/mmdfdev.tar.Z
- Comments:
-
- [ Mark Vasoll <vasoll@a.cs.okstate.edu> 22-Jan-1996 ]
-
- What is currently there is update 43 with some critical patches
- applied, such as the fix to MX handling. However, the contents are
- subject to change as this file is basically used by my friends on the
- okstate campus who help me test various pieces of the "slowly
- developing" update 44.
-
-
- ----
-
- What: another source for MMDF (2.43?)
- Where: ftp://ftp.arl.army.mil/mmdf.tar.Z
- Comments:
-
- ----
-
- What: Solaris 2.x port of MMDF (2.43?)
- Where: ftp://ftp.arl.army.mil/mmdf.sol2.2.Z
- Comments:
-
- [ Ran Atkinson <address omitted by request> 10-Oct-1998 ]
-
- Prior to the advent of version 2.44, this _was_ the recommended
- starting point for getting MMDF running under Solaris 2.x. Other
- sites have had good success compiling this with GCC in Solaris
- BSD-compatibility mode on later versions of Solaris (e.g. Solaris
- 2.4).
-
- The folks at ARL have helped everyone in the MMDF community for years
- (me in particular). However, at this point the 2.44 source tree
- [[described above]] is known to compile/work fine under Solaris
- 2.x and several other major OSs (e.g. HPUX, which is notoriously
- difficult to port to)
-
-
- ----
-
- What: Linux port of MMDF 2.43
- Where: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mta/mmdf-IIb-4.3.tar.gz
- Comments:
-
- This Linux port is fairly old and appears not to compile
- out-of-the-box under the newer versions of Linux. A better bet would
- be MMDF 2.44 from Universitaet Kaiserslautern, described above.
-
- ----
-
- { Any other ports that are publicly available? }
-
- Contributed patches are sometimes posted to the MMDF2 discussion list.
- See http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf for a message archive.
-
- --
-
- 2.3) A brief history of MMDF
-
- The following historical notes were compiled from information provided
- by Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com> and from the usual
- suspects. Any errors are the fault of the maintainer, so please do
- send us corrections or additions.
-
- For Dave's original historical note, see this URL:
-
- http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/crocker-note.html
-
-
- 1976: Early morning on the ARPANET. Dave Farber and Dave Crocker
- work at RAND (the think tank) on "MS", a PDP-11 UNIX e-mail
- system project. This inspires Bruce Borden to create MH,
- the popular mail user agent.
-
- 1978: Dave Farber and Dave Crocker go to the University of Delaware
- (UDel) as professor and grad student. Grad student Ed
- Szurkowski writes phonenet protocol for telephone-based
- link-level transfer. Crocker develops MMDF to provide ARPANET
- e-mail connectivity over phonenet, using RAND as a relay.
-
- 1979: Experimental deployment of MMDF/phonenet by Army Materiel
- Command; there are claimed to be instances still running today.
- IBM provides some additional funding for MMDF.
-
- 1980: NSF funds creation of CSNet. MMDF I is used to link members,
- using UDel and RAND as relays. Others get involved: Doug
- Kingston (Ballistic Research Labs) and Steve Kille (University
- College London).
-
- 1981: Ira Winston (University of Pennsylvania) recodes MMDF I in
- Pascal to create PMDF running under VAX/VMS.
-
- 1982: Crocker finishes alpha version of MMDF II, which adds TCP/IP
- and DNS support, among other things. Mark Laubach propagates
- PMDF to Hewlett-Packard.
-
- 1984: Kingston, Kille, Dan Long (BBN), and Craig Partridge (BBN)
- complete MMDF II and release it for 4.3BSD. Julian Onions
- rewrites the local channel, contributes general maintenance
- and documentation. Phil Cockroft (University College London)
- adds (more or better?) DNS support.
-
- 1985: Kille uses MMDF as the basis for the PP X.400 system. Ned
- Freed (Oklahoma State) modifies PMDF to handle RFC-822;
- PMDF is released through CSNet. PMDF eventually becomes
- fairly widely used within the VMS community in the later
- 1980s.
-
- 1991: Ned Freed commercializes PMDF.
-
- { More brief history entries? }
-
- Other names and institutions appearing in the code, in no particular order:
-
- - Howard Walter
-
- --
-
- 2.4) Glossary
-
- Every subculture needs its list of buzzwords. Here's a collection for MMDF.
-
- BIND the UC Berkeley implementation of DNS (aka "named")
- body the part of a message after the header (the "meat")
- channel typically a program for delivering mail
- CTE content transfer encoding (e.g. base64, quoted-printable, etc.)
- DNS the Internet Domain Name System (see also BIND)
- ESMTP Extended SMTP - RFC 1651
- header the To, From, Subject, etc. at the start of a message
- mail transport the "post office", e.g. sendmail, smail, MMDF, etc.
- MMDF Multi-channel Memo Distribution Facility, an MTA
- MIME Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - RFC 1521
- MTA Mail Transport Agent, see "mail transport"
- MUA Mail User Agent, see "user agent"
- PEM Privacy Enhanced Mail
- PGP Pretty Good Privacy
- RFC request for comments; proposed or standard Internet protocols
- SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol - RFC 821
- spam Mail sent indiscriminately to a large number of recipients
- URL WWW uniform resource locator; access-method://host/path
- user agent the end user's mail program, e.g. MH, ELM, /bin/mail, etc.
- WWW the worldwide web
-
- ----
-
-
- 3) User-Level Questions
- -----------------------
-
- 3.1) How can I achieve the same effect as the sendmail .forward file?
-
- Invoke the MMDF resend program in your $HOME/.maildelivery file.
- See also the resend(1) man page.
-
- Here is an example .maildelivery file entry using resend:
-
- default - | A "/usr/local/mmdf/bin/resend metoo@host.domain"
-
- Beware of resend's .signature file format expectations (see question
- 3.5).
-
- If you're an MH user, you might want to invoke the rcvdist program in
- your $HOME/.maildelivery file instead. See also the mhook(1) man
- page.
-
- Example:
-
- default - | A "/usr/local/lib/mh/rcvdist metoo@host.domain"
-
- The rcvdist program is somewhat finicky about header formats, and
- may reject a message if improperly formed Date or recipient address
- fields are present.
-
- MMDF does have a DOTFORWARD option that provides support for a file
- named "$HOME/.forward".
-
- [ John R MacMillan <john@interlog.com> 10-Aug-1997 ]
-
- The DOTFORWARD code allows pipes and multiple addresses in the same
- format as alias tables, not the sendmail format, but BE WARNED: the
- DOTFORWARD code has HUGE security problems. This is from memory and a
- quick look at the source, but I know when I first discovered this that
- I verified that the problems really do exist.
-
- Compiling with DOTFORWARD allows any user to overwrite any file on the
- system (eg. /etc/passwd) and run arbitrary programs as root. The
- problem is that the .forward files are treated like a little trusted
- alias table, which allows writing files and piped commands as any
- user.
-
- IMHO, DOTFORWARD should be removed from the MMDF source base, or at
- least cleaned up to be made safer.
-
- SCO's MMDF supports .forward files that are compatible with
- sendmail's, and does not use the DOTFORWARD code, and so does not
- suffer from these problems.
-
-
- { It's not clear whether the .forward file may contain a pipe command
- or a list of addresses to which to forward, a la sendmail. }
-
- --
-
- 3.2) Is there a more powerful .maildelivery-like mechanism with
- Boolean operators and such?
-
- Yes, there are several such programs that you might invoke as a "*" or
- a "default" case in your .maildelivery file.
-
- Some examples (from the comp.mail.misc "UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ"):
-
- What: mailagent
- Where: ftp://ftp.univ-lyon1.fr/pub/unix/mail/tools/mailagent-3.0.tar.gz
- Comments: A set of programs to perform various e-mail sorting functions.
- See also: news:comp.mail.misc
- "UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ [Part 3 of 3]"
-
-
- What: majordomo
- Where: ftp://ftp.greatcircle.com/pub/majordomo/
- Comments: Majordomo is a perl-based program for automated
- mailing list maintenance.
-
- [ Andy Powell <ccsap@bath.ac.uk> - 23-Jan-1996 ]
-
- I believe that there is also a patch required for the sendmail
- replacement if you want to use majordomo with MMDF. The patch
- is only required if you want to use majordomo's 'resend'
- script to process list messages. We run majordomo and MMDF
- here but use the normal MMDF list channel to process list
- messages - in doing so we lose some of the functionality of
- majordomo, for example moderated lists, but bypass the
- sendmail problem and, arguably, get better performance with
- large lists.
-
- There may also be more information available from the archives of
- the majordomo-users@greatcircle.com and majordomo-workers@greatcircle.com
- lists. In both cases send the word "help" (no quotes, put it in the
- body rather than the subject) to majordomo@greatcircle.com to start
- the process.
-
- [ Gunther Anderson <gunther@world.std.com> 5-Aug-1994 ]
-
- In getting Majordomo to work properly, I discovered a bug in [MMDF's]
- sendmail, as found in uip/other/sendmail.c. Basically, the real
- sendmail handles the -f{sender} flag differently. In standard
- sendmail, the -f flag changes the "From " header (the envelope From,
- and the Mail From: command in SMTP), and doesn't touch the "From:"
- header, the message From:. In RFC822 messages, these can indeed be
- very different from each other, and Majordomo uses them to separate
- ends. MMDF's sendmail stub deliberately chooses to use the -f
- parameter as both the envelope From and the message From:, rewriting
- the message From: as it goes. I removed the automatic From: rewriting
- from my version, and things like Majordomo are much happier.
-
- [ Gunther W Anderson <gunther@world.std.com> 24-Jan-1996 ]
-
- I posted instructions and a couple of patches to majordomo-workers
- year before last. These were for Majordomo 1.92, and were
- specifically designed to get Majordomo to work on SCO Unix. As a
- side effect, it also patched MMDF II 43b (the current version) to
- work properly. Check out the archives, and you'll find the data.
-
-
- See also: news:comp.mail.misc
- "Majordomo Frequently Asked Questions"
-
-
- What: procmail
- Where: ftp://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
- Comments: A set of programs to perform various e-mail sorting functions.
- See also: news:comp.mail.misc
- "UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ [Part 3 of 3]"
- There is also a mailing list related to procmail; subscribe
- by sending mail to "procmail-request@informatik.rwth-aachen.de"
- with Subject: subscribe.
-
- --
-
- 3.3) How can I debug my .maildelivery file?
-
- [ Craig Partridge <craig@aland.bbn.com> 24-Jan-1996 ]
-
- I used to debug it by running the local channel by hand with
- "deliver -w -clocal" and then watching the output to see what
- .maildelivery did.
-
- The log files might also reveal some problems, for example:
-
- [ John DuBois <johnd@sco.COM> - 7-Oct-1997 ]
-
- +/usr/mmdf/log/chan.log
- +
- +10/ 7 3:36:49 local 8122: unidentified action type 0
- +10/ 7 3:51:51 local 8147: Unknown action to perform 'Mailbox'
-
- This is a result of a line in a user's .maildelivery file having a
- bogus action field (the 3rd field). The lines preceding these in the
- log file should indicate the users that the messages were being
- delivered to (you may have to increase the logging level to get that).
-
- --
-
- 3.4) Why doesn't my .maildelivery file work?
-
- MMDF is finicky about ownerships and permissions. Make sure that
- your .maildelivery file is (a) in your home directory, (b) owned
- by you, and (c) not writeable by anyone except you (e.g. chmod 644).
-
- See also the preceding item (3.3).
-
- --
-
- 3.5) Why does "resend" bounce with the error "No valid author
- specification present"?
-
- This is caused by "resend" rejecting your .signature file. If you use
- "resend", then your .signature file must conform to its expectations.
-
- Unfortunately, the MMDF "resend" program has a different idea about
- .signature files than USENET news and most other things. Resend
- assumes that the .signature file contains exactly one text line, which
- is information to be placed in the outgoing message's From: field's
- full name area.
-
- [ Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.com> 7-Jun-1996 ]
-
- SCO's version of resend does not do this. It looks instead for a
- file called .fullname.
-
- HOWEVER, several other parts of SCO's MMDF *do* look at
- .signature:
-
- * rcvtrip uses it to construct some text along the lines of:
- "This is an automatic message, sent on behalf of %s"
-
- * v6mail [which SCO doesn't ship] uses it to create either the
- From: or the Sender: header (I didn't bother to tease out
- which it was)
-
- * ml_sender() uses it the same as v6mail. ml_sender() is called
- by ml_init(), which is in turn used by just about anything
- that delivers mail under MMDF (I think). It looks to me as if
- this ought to happen all the time; but I couldn't figure out
- how to get it to trigger even once.
-
- [ Gulraj Rijhwani <gdr@courtfld.demon.co.uk> 17-Oct-1996 ]
-
- In SCO 3.2v4.2 ... the "No valid author" error [occurred]
- following reconfiguration and recompilation of the MMDF table to
- reflect a change in the local domain. It appears that the general
- cause was a discrepancy between the local domain table and root
- domain tables.
-
-
- ----
-
- 4) Administrator-Level Questions
- --------------------------------
-
- 4.1) How can I arrange for a "hidden-host" effect, e.g. that outgoing
- "From" addresses of the form user@<host>.<domain> are rewritten
- simply as "user@<domain>"?
-
- [ Mark Vasoll <vasoll@a.cs.okstate.edu> - 22-Jan-1996 ]
-
- Answer #1: use the MLOCMACHINE feature (see section 5.4.1 of
- "Installing and Operating MMDF II").
-
- Answer #2: use the POP channel to create a sort of "virtual host"
- where pop users don't need to have accounts on the MMDF host.
-
- We are doing both on the okstate campus, I'd be happy to send
- along config examples.
-
- It appears that MMDF won't rewrite a fully qualified domain address,
- even if MLOCMACHINE is set.
-
- For example, MH adds the fully qualified domain name of the local host
- even before the message is submitted to MMDF. Some persons consider
- this a feature. To prevent the FQDN from being added, you might try
- experimenting with the mtstailor file's "servers:" entry.
- Alternatively, MH may have to be compiled with the DUMB or REALDUMB
- configuration options.
-
- --
-
- 4.2) How can I deliver mail to a POP mailbox?
-
- You need to set up the POP channel and an alias for each user that
- directs the mail to an address of the form "<popuser>@POP".
-
- See this URL for an example POP channel setup:
-
- http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/pop/index.html
-
- Users with local non-POP maildrops may also do this for themselves by
- re-sending to their own POP addresses from their .maildelivery files.
-
- Note that the POP channel just handles the delivery end of the
- business. To enable users to retrieve mail from their POP mailboxes,
- you'll need to run a server daemon, such as "popd", "popper",
- "qpopper", "imapd", et al, that speaks one or more variants of the
- Post Office Protocol --typically POP-2 or POP-3--and that has a
- mailbox locking mechanism compatible with that used by MMDF's POP
- delivery channel. (Other POP variants include APOP, KPOP, and RPOP.)
- All of the aforementioned daemons are available via Internet anonymous
- FTP; use archie to search for a site that archives the sources.
-
- --
-
- 4.3) Is there a way to make MMDF look up local hosts if DNS name
- service fails?
-
- [ Mark Vasoll <vasoll@a.cs.okstate.edu> - 22-Jan-1996 ]
-
- Create a channel running the 'smtp' channel program, but
- using a file style table. Then put IP addresses in it.
-
- --
-
- 4.4) How can I avoid generating source-routed envelope addresses,
- such as @foo,bar:zot.edu?
-
- [ John DuBois <johnd@sco.COM> - 2-Oct-1997 ]
-
- A source route is used if the hostname returned by a resolver lookup
- on the source IP address is not the same as the hostname given in the
- return address, after both have been mapped through the domain tables.
-
- You might try mapping (in a domain file) each of the domains in
- use to the hostname returned by a reverse lookup on the host that
- handles that domain.
-
- Another possible way to fix this is to configure your user agent to
- submit mail via the SMTP server's canonical host name instead of, for
- example, "localhost".
-
- For example, to configure MH to do this, put the fully qualified name
- of the SMTP server in a "servers:" line in the mtstailor file, e.g.
-
- servers: myhost.mydomain.tld
-
- ...where "myhost.mydomain.tld" should match precisely whatever the
- SMTP server prints out in its 220 greeting line.
-
- If the SMTP server prints out "you are a charlatan" in response to the
- HELO command, then something's wrong, and your configuration is
- probably going to continue to generate source routes.
-
- --
-
- 4.5) Why do I get duplicate mail sent to a mailing list?
-
- [ Dave Barr <barr@math.psu.edu> ]
-
- MMDF 2.43's list channel verifies the validity of the whole
- mailing list before returning from the Submit call. The thing
- calling Submit may time out and close, while leaving Submit itself
- running.
-
- The calling routine may believe that the message has failed in its
- delivery, when in fact the still-running Submit process may
- eventually succeed. The calling process tries again some time
- later, thus creating a duplicate.
-
- The larger the list gets, the more addresses there are to verify
- (verification just being a DNS search on the target machine name),
- and the more likely, under load, that the message duplicates.
-
- One solution is to use a different channel for submission and
- delivery, one which deliberately doesn't verify the addresses
- before accepting a job. Use the list-processor channel to check
- that the listname-request name is set properly (because
- list-processor insists on making listname-request the envelope
- "From " header name).
-
- Duplicate mail on Linux may be caused by the broken flock()
- implementation under some (<1.3.x?) versions of Linux.
- Avoid flock().
-
- --
-
- 4.6) How do I gate a list to and/or from a newsgroup?
-
- { Any examples? I know that UCI has come up with a pretty good way
- to do this, but their solution may not have made it back into the
- general release yet. }
-
- --
-
- 4.7) How do I get MMDF to rotate its logs as documented?
-
- [ Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.COM> 19-Apr-1996 ]
-
- I think the MMDF log cycling code has never worked in any version
- of MMDF, so you will have to do your own external log cycling if
- you are having space problems.
-
- If you do your own external log cycling, be sure to configure MMDF to
- close the log files periodically, by using, for example, the parameter
- "stat=some" on the M*LOG entries in the mmdftailor file.
-
- --
-
- 4.8) How can I bounce e-mail spams automatically?
-
- There are several policy choices, which may be implemented at the site
- level or at the individual level:
-
- 1. Reject all mail from any unknown sources.
- 2. Reject all mail from known "blacklisted" sources.
- 3. Reject all mail from unverifiable sources.
-
- Although we've included below a light discussion of these cases, a
- more wide-ranging treatment of the subject can be found at this URL:
-
- What: "Fight Spam on the Internet!"
- Where: http://www.vix.com/spam/
-
- Some individuals feel that it's best simply to delete spam without
- comment rather than to build troublesome barriers or to complain about
- it.
-
- However, as the volume of spam increases, it doesn't take much to
- swamp the mail queues at large sites. For large sites, a site-level
- implementation of policy choice #2 may be necessary.
-
-
- Case 1: Reject all mail from any unknown sources.
-
- For individual implementations of policy choice #1, some persons
- employ "mail robot" programs that return polite rejection notices for
- mail originating from sources not on a list of acceptable addresses.
- Mail robots can be activated from individuals' .maildelivery files.
-
- An example of such a mail robot can be found in the Rose/Borenstein
- Safe-Tcl package, in the examples subdirectory:
-
- What: Safe-Tcl 1.2
- Where: ftp://ftp.fv.com/pub/code/other/safe-tcl.tar.gz
- Comments:
- The example mail robot is located in
- "examples/receipt-time/mtr-receipt.tcl".
-
- Other persons use "procmail", which is somewhat more general purpose,
- to implement simple rejections for entire domains.
-
-
- Case 2: Reject all mail from known "blacklisted" sources.
-
- Thanks to John DuBois <spcecdt@armory.com>, we have a site-level
- implementation of policy choice #2. Check out his "smtpcull" script:
-
- What: smtpcull
- Where: ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/admin/mmdf/smtpcull
- Comments: This is a very short shell script that works
- as a front end for smtpsrvr. It includes
- instructions for configuring and installing it.
-
- [ John DuBois <spcecdt@armory.com> 25-Jul-1996 ]
-
- } Next question: is it possible to do the same thing with the
- } built-in MMDF authorization stuff?
-
- I tried to set this up using MMDF auths. However, after reading
- assorted documentation and source and doing some fruitless
- experimentation, as far as I can tell there is a special exception for
- delivery via the 'local' channel; you can't prevent the transmission
- of a message to a local mailbox. I think the idea of MMDF auths is to
- prevent the abuse of your MTA by other hosts that would pass messages
- through it. A message being delivered to a local mailbox isn't being
- passed on, so it's always authorized. You could probably use auths
- for this purpose if all mail is handled by a central host and is
- passed off to other hosts were users' mailboxes actually reside.
-
- An auths-like facility would be much more useful for modern purposes
- if it did have the ability to restrict messages based on assorted
- information (with wildcards allowed for each and for e.g. entire
- domains rather than just hosts):
- - Claimed host of origin
- - Claimed hosts that the message has passed through
- - Claimed user of origin
- - Channel message is received via
-
- And for each recipient:
- - Channel message would be delivered via
- - Host that message would be passed to
- - Destination host
- - Destination user
-
-
- Case 3: Reject all mail from unverifiable sources.
-
- Invalid addresses might be one criterion by which incoming e-mail can
- be rejected, since many spammers use bogus e-mail addresses. Here is
- a utility program by Keith Moore that can help to check addresses:
-
- What: check_mail_addr
- Where: ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/moore/check_mail_addr.tar.gz
- Comments: This is a handy C program for checking mail addresses.
- It uses an SMTP RCPT TO command (not VRFY) to check
- the validity of an address.
-
- --
-
- 4.9) How can I prevent third-party mail relaying?
-
- The MMDF authorization facility may help to prevent third-party mail
- relaying. Included with the MMDF source tree are two documents that
- describe the authorization facility:
-
- Title: Authorisation and accounting in store and forward
- message handling systems
- Authors: D.H. Brink and S.E. Kille
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/doc/authorization.html
- Comments: Part of the standard MMDF documentation collection.
-
-
- Title: Configuring MMDF Authorisation
- Authors: Steve Kille
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/doc/auth.guide.html
- Comments: Part of the standard MMDF documentation collection.
-
-
- ----
-
- 5) Miscellaneous Questions and Gotchas
- --------------------------------------
-
- 5.1) Where is the MMDF discussion list?
-
- A mailing list for MMDF discussion is here:
-
- mailto:mmdf2-request@a.cs.okstate.edu
-
- Questions about the SCO version of MMDF may be posted to this
- USENET newsgroup:
-
- comp.unix.sco.misc
-
- This newsgroup is read by several knowledgeable and helpful persons at
- SCO, who often answer questions about MMDF very quickly.
-
- Although SCO's version of MMDF is slightly different from the publicly
- available version, particularly in the high-level administrative
- details, answers to questions posed by SCO MMDF users are often
- applicable to the publicly available versions of MMDF.
-
-
- 5.2) MMDF sendmail-replacement gotchas
-
- [ Andy Powell <ccsap@bath.ac.uk> - 23-Jan-1996 ]
-
- The sendmail supplied with MMDF is slightly defective in that it
- doesn't correctly hide Bcc: fields (if given a -t option). This
- can cause a problem for non-MMDF UAs (for example, Pine) if they
- are configured to send mail out using sendmail.
-
- In the case of Pine I suspect that this can be worked round by
- configuring it to talk directly to the MMDF smtpd running on
- localhost (assuming that you are running one).
-
- Note: SCO supplies a sendmail replacement called "execmail", in
- addition to the regular MMDF sendmail replacement. The execmail
- program is not officially documented, but it is thought to be a
- divergent version of the MMDF sendmail-replacement's source code.
- Execmail may or may not have any of the sendmail-replacement gotchas
- in the version supplied with the general release version of MMDF.
-
- [ Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.COM> 10-Jun-1996 ]
-
- execmail is a SCO-provided program similar to the MMDF `sendmail'.
- This was intended to allow drop-in replacement of SCO's old
- `MICNET' mail system with MMDF. SCO's own MUAs still use the
- execmail interface to inject mail into the MTA.
-
-
- 5.3) What new features are needed or planned for future releases of MMDF?
-
- [ Mark Vasoll <vasoll@a.cs.okstate.edu> - 22-Jan-1996 ]
-
- - Full RFC 1123 compliance (existing deviations are very minor).
- { RFC 1123: "Requirements for Internet hosts - application
- and support". ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1123.txt }
- - MIME encapsulation of error/warning messages and citations.
- - Completely revamped #ifdef structure on a "per OS feature" basis
- (no more BSD vs Sys5, since they don't really exist anymore).
- - Completely new example configurations based on "current" systems
- (I have Sequent Dynix/PTX, Sun SunOS, Sun Solaris, IBM RS6000 AIX,
- Novell Unixware and Linux in house).
- - GDBM support for tables
-
- The time table for any new release is not known. This is an unfunded
- spare time project for me. What remains to be done is mailing the
- #ifdef revisions in the user interfaces (the core code is complete)
- and a revision of the "building" section of the documentation.
-
- Other items for the MMDF wish list:
-
- - SMTP service extensions:
- RFC 1869: SMTP Service Extensions
- RFC 1652: SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport
- RFC 1870: SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration
- RFC 1891: SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status Notifications
- RFC 1985: SMTP Service Extension for Remote Message Queue Starting
- RFC 2034: SMTP Service Extension for Returning Enhanced Error Codes
- RFC 2197: SMTP Service Extension for Command Pipelining
-
- { Any others? }
-
- ----
-
- 6) An MMDF Bibliography
- -----------------------
-
- { Please suggest additional entries. }
-
-
- Title: Addressing in MMDF II
- Authors: Steve Kille
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/doc/addressing.html
- Comments: Part of the standard MMDF documentation collection.
-
-
- Title: Authorisation and accounting in store and forward
- message handling systems
- Authors: D.H. Brink and S.E. Kille
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/doc/authorization.html
- Comments: Part of the standard MMDF documentation collection.
-
-
- Title: Configuring MMDF Authorisation
- Authors: Steve Kille
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/doc/auth.guide.html
- Comments: Part of the standard MMDF documentation collection.
-
-
- Title: Configuring MMDF in a TCP/IP Environment
- Authors: Christopher Durham <chrisdu@sco.com>
- Where: ftp://ftp.xenitec.on.ca/pub/doc/mmdf/tcp-ip
- Where: http://www.sco.com/Support/ssl.html
- (See also "SCO technical articles", below)
- Comments: This document explains how to configure MMDF's SMTP channel
- under SCO Unix 3.2.
-
-
- Title: Configuring MMDF in a UUCP Environment
- Authors: Christopher Durham <chrisdu@sco.com>
- Where: ftp://ftp.xenitec.on.ca/pub/doc/mmdf/uucp
- Where: http://www.sco.com/Support/ssl.html
- (See also "SCO technical articles", below)
- Comments: This document explains how to configure MMDF's UUCP channel
- under SCO Unix 3.2.
-
-
- Title: Example MMDF Tables
- Authors: Jerry Sweet <mmdf-faq@irvine.com>
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/tables/index.html
- Comments: Discusses an example Internet site mail system configuration.
-
-
- Title: How to use MMDF to sort incoming e-mail automatically
- Authors: Jerry Sweet <mmdf-faq@irvine.com>
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/auto-sort/index.html
- Comments: Discusses how to use features in MMDF and MH to manage
- incoming e-mail from different mailing lists.
-
-
- Title: HPMDF: An Experiment Placing CSNET Phonenet Services on the
- Hewlett-Packard 3000
- Authors: Laubach, Mark, and Farber, Dave
- Where: IEEE Computer Networking Symposium Conference, Silver Springs, MD,
- December, 1983.
-
-
- Title: HPMDF: A Study of the Elements of Good Message Relaying Style
- and a Practical Implementation
- Authors: Mark Laubach <laubach@terra.com21.com>
- Where: Master's Thesis, Computer and Information Sciences Department,
- University of Delaware, May, 1987.
-
-
- Title: Installing and Operating MMDF-II
- Authors: Douglas P. Kingston III, Steve Kille, Julian Onions, Daniel B. Long
- Where: http://www.c2-tech.com/~vasoll/mmdf/admin.html
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/doc/admin.html
- Comments: This is the stock MMDF installation guide.
-
-
- Title: An Internetwork Memo Distribution Facility--MMDF
- Authors: David H. Crocker, E.S. Szurkowski, David J. Farber
- Where: Proceedings, Sixth Data Communications Symposium,
- November 1979; pages 18-25.
-
-
- Title: MMDF-II, the MTA for all jobs
- Authors: Mark Vasoll
- Where: http://www.c2-tech.com/~vasoll/mmdf/
- Comments: Mark's handy MMDF information page
-
-
- Title: MMDF-II: A Technical review
- Authors: Douglas P. Kingston, III
- Where: Proceedings, Summer USENIX Conference and Exhibition,
- Salt Lake City, Utah; June 1984; pages 32-41.
- Where: http://www.c2-tech.com/~vasoll/mmdf/review.html
- (Web version)
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/doc/review.html
- (Web version)
- Where: http://www.c2-tech.com/~vasoll/mmdf/review.ps
- (PostScript version)
-
-
- Title: MMDF Users Group
- Authors: Ran Atkinson
- Where: http://www.mmdf.org
- Comments: A handy reference page containing links to MMDF resources,
- comments about the various MMDF ports, and a list of UAs
- that work with MMDF.
-
-
- Title: Notes about MMDF and POP
- Authors: Jerry Sweet <mmdf-faq@irvine.com>
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/pop/index.html
- Comments: This is sort of a cookbook for using the POP channel.
-
-
- Title: PMDF - A Pascal-Based Memo Distribution Facility
- Authors: Ira Winston <ira@cis.upenn.edu>
- Where: Master's Thesis, Computer and Information Science Department,
- University of Pennsylvania, May, 1983.
-
-
- Title: The PP Manual
- Authors: Steve Kille, Julian Onions
- Where: Part of the PP 6.0 source code distribution.
- December 19, 1991.
-
-
- Title: SCO documentation
- Authors: SCO
- Where: SCO Unix/OpenServer printed documentation
- Where: SCO OSR5 online documentation in HTML format is available on
- systems where it has been installed, using URLs of the
- following _example_ formats:
- http://your.machine.here:457/MailMsgG/CONTENTS.html
- http://your.machine.here:457/MailMsgG/mmdfN.intro.html
- http://your.machine.here:457/MailMsgG/mlocN.maint.html
- Comments: SCO itself doesn't make these documents available for
- browsing via WWW or FTP, although some specific manual
- pages occasionally can be found by following links from the
- SCO technical articles, described below.
-
-
- Title: SCO technical articles
- Authors: SCO
- Where: http://www.sco.com/Support/ssl.html
- Comments:
-
- When you apply a search for "MMDF" using the form at the
- aforementioned web page, you should be able to find these
- articles, among others:
-
- - Configure MMDF so that rmail accepts multiple addresses per message.
- - Configure MMDF to query Name Server for domain, channel and alias info.
- - Configure MMDF to redirect mail to unknown user; reply to sender.
- - Configure MMDF to use a different HELO name when initiating SMTP.
- - Configuring MMDF in a TCP/IP environment under SCO UNIX System V/386.
- - Configuring MMDF in a UUCP environment under SCO UNIX System V/386.
- - How do I configure MMDF to send warnings about undeliverable mail?
- - How do I configure MMDF to use XENIX format mailboxes?
- - How do I configure the MMDF deadhost timeout?
- - How does MMDF host authorization work?
- - How to configure MMDF over Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP).
- - How to configure MMDF to allow multiple domains for the local system.
- - How to configure MMDF to control mail routing on a per-host basis.
- - How to configure MMDF to control mail routing on a per-user basis.
- - How to configure MMDF to group hosts in SMTP channel for authorization.
- - How to configure MMDF to use nameserver to look up all hosts.
- - How to get MMDF to use the nameserver for alias information.
- - How to make the MMDF UUCP channel initiate transfer immediately (or not).
- - How to set up mail forwarding in MMDF.
- - Inconsistency in MMDF system name, and how to change the system name.
- - MMDF Troubleshooting Techniques.
- - MMDF mailbox locking problem and how to resolve it.
- - MMDF quick reference template - local or SMTP mail configuration.
- - Which named/DNS nameserver records can I configure MMDF to use?
-
- Although many of the questions and answers in the above documents
- are specific to the SCO version of MMDF, you may find information
- that applies to the general release of MMDF as well.
-
-
- Title: SCO Technical Library Supplements
- Authors: SCO
- Where: ftp://ftp.sco.COM/TLS/
- Comments: See ftp://ftp.sco.COM/TLS/file.list for a list of files
- available via FTP; look for "MMDF".
-
-
- Title: A sendprog checklist
- Authors: Jerry Sweet <mmdf-faq@irvine.com>
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf/sendprog.html
- Comments: An example of how to use MMDF's "sendprog" facility.
-
-
- Title: Supplement to the MMDF Frequently Asked Questions List
- Authors: MMDF FAQ Maintainer <mmdf-faq@irvine.com> (ed.)
- Where: http://www.irvine.com/~mmdf
- Comments: The Supplement is a collection of MMDF-related reference
- material for MMDF administrators and users both.
-
- ----
-
- 7) Other Resources
- ------------------
-
- 7.1) Free Software
-
- This section is for listings of free implementations of MMDF, packages
- based on MMDF, or packages that are known to interoperate with MMDF.
-
- Information for this section may be contributed by anyone, including
- the maintainers of the software. The FAQ maintainers look with favor
- on brief entries that are provided in the existing entry format, but
- it's fair simply to offer corrections or updated information.
- Notifications of obsolete or non-working URLs are also appreciated.
- Send new or updated entries to "mmdf-faq@irvine.com"; posting to
- the MMDF2 list isn't necessarily sufficient.
-
- See also: news:comp.mail.misc - "UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ"
-
- { Wanted: FTP-able sources for additional channel packages,
- mail administration tools, and other goodies. }
-
- -------
-
- Name: MH 6.8
- Product: MUA
- Platform: Unix
- Where: ftp://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/mh/mh-6.8.tar.Z
- Where: ftp://louie.udel.edu/portal/mh-6.8.tar.Z
- Author:
- Comments:
-
- MH, originally from RAND and presently maintained at the University of
- California Irvine, is a popular message handling system. MH runs on
- many different UNIX platforms, and can use either sendmail or MMDF.
-
- See also: news:comp.mail.mh
- news:comp.mail.mime
-
- --
-
- Name: MMDF administrative utilities
- Product: toolset
- Platform: Unix
- Where: ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/admin/mmdf/
- Author: John DuBois <spcecdt@armory.com>
- Comments:
-
- MMDF administrative utilities. These were written for SCO XENIX and
- SCO UNIX, but most should be portable to other flavors of UNIX without
- too much trouble. If you don't have ksh for the #!/bin/ksh scripts,
- try pd-ksh, bash, or zsh. Many of them require gawk, version 2.15.5
- or later. Some require gawk 3.0.0 or later. A gawk 3.0.0 binary for
- SCO 5.0 can be found in the scobins/ directory. These utilities are
- for the MMDF mail transport agent, as shipped with SCO UNIX and used
- by many sites as a replacement for shipped mail systems.
-
- Filename Description
- mmdfq List/manipulate MMDF queue (needs stat).
- mmdfsel Full-screen front end for mmdfq (oash prog; SCO UNIX only)
- phost Pseudo-host channel for MMDF (to implement virtual domains).
- smtpcull front end for smtpsrvr that lets specific sites be blocked.
-
- --
-
- Name: mush 7.2.5
- Product: MUA
- Platform: Unix
- Where: ftp://cse.ogi.edu/pub/mush
- Author: Dan Heller & Bart Schafer
- Comments:
-
- [ Ran Atkinson <address omitted by request> 5-Sep-1996 ]
-
- Mush is not actively maintained. Z-Mail, a commercial product, is
- related.
-
- Mush, the "Mail User's Shell", is a command-line mail user agent that
- was popular at some sites in the late 1980s and is still used today at
- some sites. It runs on most versions of UNIX and is compatible with
- either MMDF's submit or with BSD Sendmail. It understands both
- MMDF-style and Sendmail-style mailbox files. It includes a large
- scripting language and can be a good general substitute for BSD's
- Mail(1), since it has a superset of features. Although mush does not
- appear to be actively maintained any longer, a patch to let mush work
- under BSDI is available on ftp.bsdi.com in their contributed software
- section.
-
- --
-
- Name: PP 6.0
- Product: MTA
- Platform: UNIX
- Where: ftp://ftp.uninett.no
- Author: Steve Kille et al.
- Contact:
- Comments:
-
- PP is a large-scale X.400/SMTP mailer and gateway. The last
- non-commercial version was PP 6.0 (ca. 1992), which is still available
- for downloading from some Internet sites; one is listed above. PP has
- since been folded into a commercial software suite from the ISODE
- Consortium; see the entry for "ISODE Consortium MTA", below.
-
- Steve Kille used MMDF as the basis for the PP X.400 system.
-
- ----
-
- 7.2) Commercial Software
-
- This section is for listings of commercial software based on MMDF,
- or that provides enhancements to MMDF.
-
- Contributions to this section may be made by anyone, including the
- firms offering the packages. The FAQ maintainers look with favor on
- _brief_ entries, preferably as non-hypeful as possible, that are
- provided in the existing entry format, but it's fair simply to offer
- corrections, updated information, or unbiased consumer-oriented
- comments. Send new or updated entries to the address
- "mmdf-faq@irvine.com"; posting to the MMDF2 list isn't necessarily
- sufficient.
-
- ----
-
- Name: ISODE Consortium MTA
- Product: MTA
- Platform: UNIX
- Contact: ic-info@isode.com
- Where: http://www.isode.com/
-
- [ Steve Kille <S.Kille@isode.com> 26-Oct-1995 ]
-
- { This entry has been brutally edited from the much longer version
- originally contributed to the comp.mail.mime FAQ. }
-
- The ISODE Consortium MTA is an X.400 and SMTP mailer, and a gateway
- between these, so you can communicate with "both worlds". This
- product is based on the older public domain PP MTA, but now includes
- many enhancements and features.
-
- The ISODE Consortium product is a source release. Binary Products
- based on the technology are available from commercial vendors who are
- members of the ISODE Consortium.
-
- Here's a URL for Nexor's version of the ISODEC MTA:
- http://www.nexor.co.uk/nexor/mkting/mware/mmta.html
-
- See also:
- http://domen.uninett.no/~hta/x400/products/
-
-
- Name: PMDF
- Product: MTA
- Platform: VMS
- Contact: sales@innosoft.com, service@innosoft.com
- Author: Innosoft International
- Comments:
-
- Innosoft's PMDF is a mature commercial version of PMDF. Ned Freed,
- one of PMDF's maintainers, is notably active in Internet electronic
- mail specification and standardization efforts. He frequently
- participates in discussions in the comp.mail.mime newsgroup.
-
- [ Ned Freed <ned@innosoft.com> ]
-
- Send technical inquiries to service@innosoft.com. Product
- information, pricing, and literature can be obtained from
- sales@innosoft.com. The phone number is (909) 624-7907; FAX is
- (909) 621-5319. Street address is:
-
- Innosoft International, Inc.
- 250 W. First St., Suite 240
- Claremont, CA 91711
-
-
- See also: news:vmsnet.mail.pmdf
-
-
- Name: SCO OpenServer
- Product: Operating system
- Platform: x86 machines
- Contact: info@sco.com
- Where: http://www.sco.com/
-
- [ Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.com> 07-Jun-1996 ]
-
- SCO OpenServer Release 5 is a greatly enhanced Unix System V Release
- 3.2 implementation for Intel x86 architecture machines. It is
- included here because its default mail transport agent is MMDF IIb
- version 43.
-
- SCO
- 400 Encinal St.
- POB 1900
- Santa Cruz, CA 95060-1900 USA
- +1 800 846 2726
- +1 408 425 7222
-
- Note that SCO has made some private enhancements and bug fixes to
- MMDF. In particular, SCO moved some programs from ~mmdf/lib to
- ~mmdf/bin. There may be various functional differences in some of the
- channels and programs. A complete list of differences is not known to
- be enumerated anywhere. When reading SCO's documentation and
- technical articles, be mindful of possible differences when applying
- the information to non-SCO versions of MMDF.
-
- --
-
- Name: Z-Mail for UNIX
- Product: MUA
- Platform: UNIX, Dos, Windows
- Contact: info@netmanage.com
- Where: http://www.netmanage.com/
-
- [ Ran Atkinson <address omitted by request> 5-Sep-1996 ]
-
- Z-Mail is derived from the freely distributable Mail User's Shell
- (mush), described earlier. Z-Mail for UNIX platforms supports
- both MMDF-style mailboxes and Sendmail-style mailboxes,
- automatically detecting which mailbox format is in use on the
- system. Z-Mail for UNIX has both a X11/Motif GUI version and a
- command-line version. The command-line version is very similar to
- mush, though with additional features. Zmail includes support for
- MIME and also for Sun MailTool-format attachments.
-
- This software is available in binary form for most commercial
- versions of UNIX. It is included at no extra cost with SGI IRIX
- systems and is renamed "MediaMail" on the SGI systems.
-
-
-
- 8) Authorship
- -------------
-
- The MMDF FAQ was boilerplated partially from the comp.mail.mime FAQ,
- originally by Ed Vielmetti. The cast of contributors to that FAQ is
- credited therein.
-
- Some MMDF-specific text was cribbed from these sources:
-
- Where: news:comp.mail.misc
- Source Subject: UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ [Part 3 of 3]
- From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis)
- Section: MMDF
- from a review by I.Sparry@gdt.bath.ac.uk
-
- Where: news:comp.mail.misc
- Source Subject: Majordomo Frequently Asked Questions
- From: barr@math.psu.edu (Dave Barr)
- Section: WHY DO I GET DUPLICATE MAIL SENT TO THE LIST?
- by Gunther Anderson
-
- The MMDF FAQ's current maintainer is Jerry Sweet <mmdf-faq@irvine.com>.
-
- Please note:
-
- Questions about MMDF and related issues, if not already answered in
- the FAQ, should be posted to comp.mail.misc or to the mmdf2 mailing
- list (see section 2.2 for its request address).
-
- Correspondence sent to the MMDF FAQ maintainer primarily should
- address information in the MMDF FAQ---corrections, additions, or
- suggestions for improvement.
-
-
- 8.1) Acknowledgements
-
- Written contributions specifically made for this FAQ have come from:
-
- { Your name and, optionally, e-mail address or URL, could be here! }
-
- Gunther Anderson
- mailto:gunther@world.std.com
- Ran Atkinson
- mailto:Ran Atkinson <address omitted by request>
- Dave Crocker
- mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com
- http://www.brandenburg.com
- Bela Lubkin
- mailto:belal@sco.com
- Julian Onions
- mailto:j.onions@nexor.co.uk
- http://www.nexor.co.uk/users/jpo/jpo.html
- Craig Partridge
- mailto:craig@aland.bbn.com
- Andy Powell
- mailto:ccsap@bath.ac.uk
- http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsap
- Jerry Sweet
- mailto:mmdf-faq@irvine.com
- http://www.irvine.com/~jsweet
- Mark Vasoll
- mailto:vasoll@a.cs.okstate.edu
- http://www.c2-tech.com/~vasoll
-
- Resources for maintaining the MMDF FAQ are provided by Irvine Compiler
- Corporation - "We Make Ada Fly!" { http://www.irvine.com }
-
-
- 8.2) Permissions
-
- Permission is granted for unlimited redistribution of the unedited
- MMDF FAQ.
-
-