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- Configuration Guide
- to the
- MSG Mail System
-
- (C) Copyright 1986, by
- Dave Taylor
-
- February 28, 1986
-
-
- This document is intended as a supplement to the Msg
- Users Guide and is only of interest to sites having the
- source code to the msg system.
-
-
- Virtually all of the installation dependent definitions
- are contained in the file 'hdrs/sysdefs.h', as detailed
- below;
-
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
- #define USE_EMBEDDED_ADDRESSES
-
- #define FIND_DELTA 10 /* for binary searches in path database */
-
- #define MAX_HEADERS 500 /* max number of messages in one file! */
- #define MAX_SALIASES 503 /* number of system aliases allowed */
- #define MAX_UALIASES 251 /* number of user aliases allowed */
- #define MAX_IN_WEEDLIST 50 /* max headers to weed out */
-
- #define MAX_HOPS 35 /* max hops in return addr to E)veryone */
-
- #define MAX_ATTEMPTS 6 /* #times to attempt lock file creation */
-
- #define REMOVE_AT_LAST /* see leavembox.c */
-
- #define DEFAULT_BATCH_SUBJECT "no subject (file transmission)"
-
- #define NOCHECK_VALIDNAME /* see validname.c */
-
- #define NOTES_HEADER "/***** "
- #define NOTES_FOOTER "/* ---------- */"
-
- #ifdef BSD
- # define system_hash_file "/usr/spool/mail/.alias_hash"
- # define system_data_file "/usr/spool/mail/.alias_data"
- #else
- # define system_hash_file "/usr/mail/.alias_hash"
- # define system_data_file "/usr/mail/.alias_data"
- #endif
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- #define pathfile "/usr/lib/nmail.paths"
-
- #define Lsys "/usr/lib/uucp/L.sys"
-
- #define DEBUG "Msg.debug.info"
-
- #define temp_file "/tmp/snd."
- #define temp_mbox "/tmp/mbox."
- #define temp_print "/tmp/print."
- #define mailtime_file ".last_read_mail"
- #ifdef BSD
- # define default_editor "/usr/ucb/vi"
- # define mailhome "/usr/spool/mail/"
- #else
- # define default_editor "/usr/bin/vi"
- # define mailhome "/usr/mail/"
- #endif
-
- #define sendmail "/usr/lib/sendmail"
- #define sendmailflags "-oi"
- #define mailer "/bin/rmail"
- #define mailx "/usr/bin/mailx"
-
- #define helphome "/usr/local/lib/"
- #define helpfile "main.help"
-
- #define msgrcfile "/.msgrc"
- #define mailheaders ".msgheaders"
- #define unedited_mail "emergency.mbox"
- #define newalias "newalias 1>&2 > /dev/null"
-
- #define remove "/bin/rm -f" /* how to remove a file */
- #define cat "/bin/cat" /* how to display files */
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
-
- USE_EMBEDDED_ADDRESSES This controls the mailers response to
- messages that contain "Reply-To:" or "From:"
- lines that actually contain a return address.
- If it's defined, the mailer will attempt to
- use the address specified (overriding the
- return address built from the path that the
- mail took). It will look the address up in
- the pathalias database (see the documentation
- on the alias system) for incomplete paths,
- but it is still recommended that this be left
- undefined.
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- Page 2
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- This will, of course, make the mailer
- not be a standard 'RFC-822' mailer, since the
- mail system is defined to use the reply-to if
- included rather than the return address, but,
- at least for addresses on the ARPA net, it
- ain't going to work a lot of the time!
-
- FIND_DELTA This is the delta that the binary search of
- the pathalias database will use to determine
- when it's slicing up a single line, rather
- than a multitude of lines. Ideally, this
- should be set to 1 byte less than the shor-
- test line in the file...the default is 10
- bytes.
-
- MAX_HEADERS The maximum number of messages allowed in a
- single mailbox.
-
- MAX_SALIASES The number of system aliases allowed. (It
- is recommended that this be a prime number to
- improve the performance of the hashing func-
- tion (it's a complicated proof!))
-
- MAX_UALIASES The number of user aliases allowed. (should
- be a prime number - see the comment above)
-
- MAX_IN_WEEDLIST The maximum number of headers that can be
- specified in the weedout list of the .msgrc
- file. A suggested alternative approach if
- this number is too small is to specify ini-
- tial substrings in the file rather than
- increasing the number. For example, say you
- want to weedout the headers "Latitude:" and
- "Latitudinal-Coords:", you could simply
- specify "Latitud" and match them both!
- Furthermore you could also specify headers
- like "X-" and remove all the user defined
- headers!
-
- MAX_HOPS When replying to a G)roup, this is the max-
- imum number of hops that a message can have
- taken. This is used to try to optimize the
- return address (remove cyclic loops and so
- on) and regular use should show that the
- default of 35 is plenty more than you'll ever
- need!
-
- MAX_ATTEMPTS When reading in the default mailbox
- (/usr/mail/$username) the mailer creates a
- file called "/usr/mail/$username.lock" to
- ensure that no mail is added to the file
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- Page 3
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- while it's being either read, or replaced (ie
- written to). Occasionally, this lock file
- will already be in place since someone is
- currently sending you mail. If this occurs,
- the mailer will wait a few seconds and try to
- create the lock file again. This parameter
- defines the number of tries the mailer should
- take before giving up.
-
- REMOVE_AT_LAST When it does decide to give up after trying
- to create the lock file, (see MAX_ATTEMPTS,
- above) this will define how to act. If it's
- defined, the mailer will attempt to remove
- the lock file after the MAX_ATTEMPTS timeout.
- On the other hand, if it's not defined (the
- recommended state) it'll simply quit the
- mailer, telling the user to try again in a
- few minutes.
-
- DEFAULT_BATCH_SUBJECT What the subject should be on messages
- that are from redirected input but don't have
- a subject specified...
-
- NOCHECK_VALIDNAME This disables the checking of validnames
- on the existing machine. On machines that
- run a system such as sendmail and use the
- sendmail alias feature, this should be
- defined. On other systems this should be
- left as the default (not defined) to avoid
- users generating "dead.letter" files...
-
- NOTES_HEADER This defines the first "word" of the line
- that a notes file entry would contain.
-
- NOTES_FOOTER This defines the footer line (in it's
- entirety).
-
- system_hash_file This is the file that contains the hashed
- version of the system aliases. It is also
- used in the newalias command. (note that it
- is defined differently if you're running on a
- Berkeley system)
-
- system_data_file This is the other file the newalias command
- installs in the system alias area. (Note
- this is defined differently if you're runnnig
- a bsd system)
-
- pathfile This defines the location of the alias
- datafile. This file is in the format that
- pathalias generates, that is;
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- machine <tab> address
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- For further information, please see the Msg
- Alias System documentation.
-
- Lsys This defines where the system L.sys file is
- kept. This is used for the mailer to quickly
- know what machines the current machine can
- talk to directly (to avoid trying to search
- the pathalias database to route mail to these
- machines).
-
- DEBUG The name of the file to put in the users home
- directory if they choose to use the "-d"
- debug option.
-
- temp_file Temporary file for sending outbound messages.
- Place to keep copy of incoming mailbox to
- avoid collisions with newer mail.
-
- temp_print File to use when creating a printout of a
- message.
-
- mailtime_file File to compare date to to determine if a
- given message is New since the last time the
- mail was read or not.
-
- default_editor If no editor is specified in the users .msgrc
- file, this is which editor to use. ENSURE IT
- IS A VALID EDITOR ON THIS MACHINE!! (Not
- that the default home for "vi" is different
- on BSD machines)
-
- mailhome Where all the incoming mailboxes are, and
- also where the 'lock' files have to be put
- for the mailer to know not to add new mail
- while we're reading/writing the mailfile.
- (note that mail is kept in a different direc-
- tory on Berkeley systems)
-
- sendmail Defines where sendmail is (if you have it on
- your system).
-
- sendmailflags Defines the flags to hand to sendmail if and
- when the program chooses to use it.
-
- mailer If you don't have sendmail, this is the
- mailer that'll be used.
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- Page 5
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- mailx If all else fails, this mailer can be used in
- a rather dumb way.
-
- helphome Where the help file is kept (soon to be help
- files!)
-
- helpfile The name of the main helpfile (kept in "hel-
- phome").
-
- msgrcfile The name of the automatic control file
- (currently ".msgrc")
-
- mailheaders The name of the optional file that users
- may have that will be included in the headers
- of each outbound message.
-
- unedited_mail In the strange case when the mailer suddenly
- finds all the directories it uses shut off
- (like /usr/mail and /tmp) then it'll put the
- current mailbox into this file in the users
- home directory.
-
- newalias How to install new aliases..
-
- remove How to remove a file.
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- cat How to display a file to stdout.
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