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1995-07-18
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MLP - Mailing List Processor for OS/2 Version 0.9
==========================================================================
File: hints.doc
Date: June 24, 1995
Author: Jivko Koltchev <jivko@ijs.com>
**************************************************************************
This document is intended to give you some ideas as to how best make use
and have fun with MLP. I will not be surprise if you do not like some
of the details. I am sure some of you will come up with much better ideas
and will appreciate it if you could forward them to me so I could include
them in this document for others use them as well.
I also am aware that my English is not very good so if you feel like
correcting some portions of the text, please do so.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
o. Messages are bouncing back and MLP is not rescheduling their
o. Using MLP for retrieving information via e-mail
o. Only the first address in the To: field will be used for determining
mail list name. (this was a bug and has been fixed however the problem
with copying multiple lists with the same e-mail persists)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
o. Only the first address in the To: field will be used for determining
mail list name. (this was a bug and has been fixed however the problem
with copying multiple lists with the same e-mail persists)
** Contributed by Michael Warmuth <Michael.Warmuth@wu-wien.ac.at> **
Symptom: When mail list address isn't the first one in the
To: field it will not be sent to the recipients.
Problem: Only the first address in the To: field will be used
for determining mail list name.
Solution: By a very small modification of the sendmail.cf the
Received: field can be changed to reflect the userid
of the recipient (mail list name). The second line
of the Received: field has the verb "for" in it and
the next word is the plain username.
This should be the part of the header where the list
name is determined from. Only if this field isn't
available the usual prcedures (as used now) should be
invoked.
- begin: part of the manual for SHUFFLE (shuffle.doc) by D.L. Meyer -
Modifying the SENDMAIL.CF file:
In order to properly process 'Blind Carbon-Copies' and mail without a "To:
line, a small modification is required in the SENDMAIL.CF file on your
OS/2 machine. On most implementations of Sendmail on multi-user machines,
the "Received:" line(s) contain a field "for userid" (or "for
userid@host") to signify the intended recipient. Since OS/2 is intended
to be a single-user system, IBM decided to omit this property in its
implementation of Sendmail -- making the assumption that any mail arriving
was meant for whoever was using the machine. This doesn't mean that IBM's
OS/2 Sendmail is incapable of doing it, however, it just means that we
must tell it to.
While we would like to have Sendmail use the "for userid@host" format, the
current versions of OS/2 Sendmail do not seem to provide this capability.
But it does allow use of the "for userid" format, fortunately
Here's how we make the change to include the "for userid" field --
From an OS/2 command prompt, type:
copy %etc%\sendmail.cf %etc%\sendmail.bak <Return>
This makes a backup copy, in case something goes awry. Now type:
e %etc%\sendmail.cf <Return>
When the editor loads and the file is loaded, search for the text
"Received:". (Select [Edit]->[Find], and type in "Received:", pressing
[OK] when done.) The search should locate pair of lines closely resembling
the following:
HReceived: $?sfrom $s $.by $j ($v/$Z)
id $i; $b
(The second line is a continuation of the first.)
Now, change the second line to read:
$?ufor $u; $.id $i; $b
(Actually the added text, "$?ufor $u; ", can be placed anywhere in the
second line, or at the end of the 1st line. I recommend the second line,
however, since the first line gets pretty long already.)
After the change is complete, save the file and exit. (Select
[File]->[Save], then [File]->[Exit].) Be sure to kill & restart the
Sendmail server process (or simply shutdown & restart your machine) in
order to place the changes into service.
- end: part of the manual for SHUFFLE (shuffle.doc) by D.L. Meyer -
o. Messages are bouncing back and MLP is not rescheduling their
delivery.
The default configuration of sendmail is such that it will not
place any messages into the queue if they cannot be delivered
at the moment. Unfortunately in sendmail will return error level
equivalent to success and MLP will not be able to reschedule
delivery of that message.
The work around for this problem currently is changing the sendmail's
configuration so that it will place undeliverable messages into
its queue and attempt deliver them on a later time. Here is a quote
from the readme.bas file provided by IBM which describes how you
can set up this feature:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
16. SENDMAIL.CF Addition
You can add the OT option to the Options section of your SENDMAIL.CF
file. YOU MUST use an editor (such as the E.EXE editor) that
preserves tabs!
Use the OT option to tell the SENDMAIL program at your workstation how
to process mail to be delivered to a host that is currently not
receiving. If you omit the OT option, the mail is deleted from the
queue when you next start SENDMAIL. You can use the OT option to tell
SENDMAIL to keep the mail on its queue, and to continue trying to
resend it, for a specified period of time.
The format of the OT option is:
OTxt
OT Code the characters OT as shown.
x This value tells SENDMAIL for how long to keep the mail in
its queue for re-transmission. Replace the "x" with a
number specifying the number of hours, days, minutes, or
weeks.
t This value tells SENDMAIL how often to resend to a server
that failed. Replace the "t" with a unit of time.
w The x value is the number of weeks.
d The x value is the number of days.
h The x value is the number of hours.
m The x value is the number of minutes.
Here is an example of the OT option that tells SENDMAIL to keep the
undelivered mail in its queue, and to keep trying to resend it, for 8
hours before deleting it from the queue.
#####################################################################
# Options Timeout parameter: #
# Causes notes, sent to a server that was down, to be queued #
# for retry. OTxt Where x is a number and t is the timeout char: #
# h-hours, d-days, m-minutes. #
# Without the OTxt specification, the message does not get queued. #
#####################################################################
OT8h
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Make sure you edit the sendmail.cf file with editor that will preserve
all tabulation characters. If you prefer to use the EPM editor start
the editor with the following options:
"epm /t sendmail.cf"
o. Using MLP for retrieving information via e-mail
There multiple ways one could achieve this by using the command
extensions MLP provides but I find one of those very attractive
and would like to describe it herein.
I will assume HPFS partition, however it is easy to see that FAT
partition could be used as well.
Lets say the mailing list is named LIST and you have created the
following directory:
LIST\info
with ASCII text files:
LIST\info\Item 1
LIST\info\Item 2
LIST\info\Item 3
(On Spaces are OK and "Item n" could be any name that makes sense)
At this point in the mailing list's home directory you can create
the following two CMD files:
CONTENTS.CMD
RETRIEVE.CMD
CONTENTS.CMD will be used when a mail is sent to the mailing list
with Subject: [contents] and will help the user to receive information
on the available at that moment topics.
The simplest possible contents.cmd file should contain the following
commands:
echo To retrieve any of the following items send e-mail to this >>%1
echo mailing list with 'Subject: [retrieve] ^<item name^>' >>%1
echo ----------- BEGIN ------------>>%1
dir /B LIST\info\* >> %1
echo ------------ END ------------->>%1
RETRIEVE.CMD will be used when a mail is sent to the mailing list with
'Subject: [retrieve] <item name>' in order to deliver the requested
information back to whoever requested it.
A simple retrieve.cmd file would look like the following:
IF NOT %3.==. GOTO CHECKIT
echo The [retrieve] command requires argument! >>%1
GOTO HELP1
:CHECKIT
IF EXIST LIST\info\%3 GOTO DOIT
echo The item you requested is not currently available.>>%1
:HELP1
echo Please send e-mail to this address with 'Subject: [contents]>>%1
echo to receive information on the available information items. >>%1
GOTO ENDCMD
:DOIT
echo Please find hereafter the information you requested. >>%1
echo ----------- BEGIN ------------>>%1
type LIST\info\%3 >> %1
echo ------------ END ------------->>%1
:ENDCMD
You can certainly use much more complex scripts to provide SEARCH
capabilities etc. Keep in mind however that no matter how many words
follow the command in the Subject: line the script file will have
only tree arguments.
Example:
Subject: [retrieve] aaa bbb ccc ddd
In this case the third argument of retrieve.cmd will be
"aaa bbb ccc ddd" and you should parse it in the script itself
if your script file requires more than one user-specified
argument.