Fernmail is configured via a resource file called, appropriate enough, "Fernmail config". The configuration is in two parts: basic parameters are stored in 'STR ' resources, and mail-routing information is stored in 'Rout' resources. You can get by without the mail-routing resources, if you have only a single uucp neighbor, or are using UUMac as a mail transport agent (UUMac acts as a "smart router").
Basic Configuration
You must create (or modify) a resource file called "Fernmail config", store it in the folder containing the Fernmail application, and enter the following setup information into a set of names 'STR ' resources. The resource names are critical; the resource numbers do not matter. A sample configuration file is included with the standard Fernmail distribution... you should copy this file, change the name of the copy to "Fernmail config", and edit the copy.
If you're upgrading from an older version of Fernmail, you should continue to use your old config file... simply add resources to it as necessary. Your shareware registration key is stored in the config file... if you throw away this file and start afresh, you'll have to re-register, and you'll probably need a new "magic cookie" with which to do so (this won't cost you any money... just send me a message and I'll mail one back to you after I confirm your registration in my records).
The configuration strings fall into two general categories: directory (folder) names, and everything else. Directory names may be specified in Macintosh HFS format (e.g. VOLUME:DIR1:DIR2) or in Unix format (/DIR1/DIR2). The Unix format is provided primarily for backwards compatibility with older versions of Fernmail and with uupc 2.1, and is not recommended for new applications. If you use Unix format, Fernmail will place the directory hierarchy on the disk volume on which the Fernmail application itself resides; the first-mentioned directory "DIR1" will be placed in the root folder for that volume. Fernmail will create the directories you specify, if they don't exist when the program is launched.
Directories
You must specify the following directories in suitably-named 'STR ' resources:
name typical value meaning
HOMEWORLD My disk:uucp:home user directories
MAILDIR My disk:uucp:mail incoming mail
CONFDIR My disk:uucp:config config files
TEMPDIR My disk:uucp:tmp temp files
SPOOLDIR My disk:uucp:spool uucp spool files
PUBDIR My disk:uucp:uucppublic anybody-can-read
In each case, substitute the name of the Macintosh disk volume on which you wish these files to be placed, for the the string "My disk".
Are all these directories necessary?
Several people have asked me whether it's necessary to have so many different directories created, to manage Fernmail's data storage. "After all, the Mac isn't Unix!"
The answer is "No, it's not absolutely necessary" The sample configuration is set up to mimic the directory layout used in the uupc 3.0 distribution. Because uupc is a port from MS-DOS, and was built on a Unix directory model, its folder structure tends to be complex and hierarchically-oriented... and Fernmail, which is intended to be uupc-compatible, uses the same layout. The uupc 3.0 sample layout is somewhat simpler than the older uupc 2.1 layout, and Fernmail's layout has been simplified correspondingly.
You can, if you wish, "flatten" the folder layout, and collapse several directories into one. You could probably make MAILDIR, CONFDIR, TEMPDIR, SPOOLDIR, and PUBDIR the same directory without running into any serious collisions between filenames. You'll have to make an equivalent set of changes to the uupc settings file, of course.
However, you may greatly weaken the security of your uucp setup, if you make this sort of change. uupc 3.0 restricts file transfers to and from your system... it permits your neighbors to initiate transfers to and from the SPOOLDIR and PUBDIR directories, and nowhere else. If you merge one of these folders with others, then any file which you place in the merged folder will be potentially visible to your neighbor systems! Unscrupulous uucp neighbors could make copies of your Systems file (thus compromising your username and password combinations at other sites!), or retrieve pending mail not intended for them. For this reason, merging of the uupc/Fernmail directories is not recommended!
I recommend that you keep MAILDIR, TEMPDIR, SPOOLDIR, and PUBDIR separate. You may set CONFDIR to be the directory in which you store the Fernmail and uupc applications, if you wish… this lets you keep the applications, System file, and so forth all in one location.
You cannot completely collapse the HOMEWORLD structure... there will still be one or more folders in the HOMEWORLD directory (one per user), and each user's mail.sent and mbox files will be stored in their personal folders. A future version of Fernmail may support folder aliases under System 7; this would permit you to store your mailbox folder on the desktop (if you wished) and simply drop an alias to it into the HOMEWORLD folder.
Strings
You must specify the following miscellaneous things in suitably-named 'STR ' resources:
name typical value meaning
MAILBOX mbox user's mailbox file
NAME Fred Jones your real name
USERNAME jones your username
NODENAME mynode uucp site name
DOMAIN mynode.uucp domain-style site name
MAILSERVICE hisnode primary uucp neighbor
SPEED 2400 default port speed
TIMEDIFF -0800 (PST) timezone
MAILCOPY mail.sent copy of outbound mail
ALIAS Alias name of alias file in your
home directory
SEQUENCEFILE SEQF name of sequence file
TRANSPORTER uupc transport agent:
"uupc" or "gnuucp" or
"gnuucp46" or "uumac"
SELECTIONEFFECT empty BOLD or ITALIC, or OUTLINE
anything else for reverse
video
TRUSTHINTS yes Honor message-lookup hints?
SIGNATURE Signature Name of signature file
SEGMENTLINES 700 Number of lines per segment
of attached text
HEADERS Headers Name of headers file for new
messages
Currently, the SPEED resource isn't being used... but you should include it anyhow.
The SELECTIONEFFECT resource may be omitted. If it's present, it tells Fernmail to indicate the currently-selected message in boldface, in italic text, with a rectangle outlining it, or (by default) in inverse video.
TRUSTHINTS tells Fernmail whether it should honor and/or verify the message-hint resources in a mailbox's resource fork; "yes" means honor them with limited [but normally adequate] safety checking; "mostly" means honor them but perform a more extensive verification; "no" means don't honor them, but instead always perform a complete scan of the mailbox. The default is "mostly". If you use another mailer, or a text editor, to examine or change your mailbox files, you should specify either "mostly" or "no"; if you use only Fernmail, then "yes" will give you the best performance.
Coordinating Fernmail's configuration with uupc's
If you are configuring Fernmail to work with uupc 2.x or 3.0, you should be aware of the following relationships:
• If your USERNAME is "joe"
and your Fernmail HOMEWORLD is "Mydisk:uucp:home"
then your uupc HOME should be "Mydisk:uucp:home:joe"
• Your SPOOLDIR, MAILDIR, CONFDIR, TEMPDIR, and PUBDIR settings in Fernmail
should match the settings in uupc.
• Your NAME, USERNAME, MAILBOX, NODENAME, DOMAIN, and MAILSERVICE settings
in Fernmail should match the settings in uupc.
Routing resources
If you have only one uucp neighbor, and if you only send messages with one or two recipients each, you're done... you may skip this section.
If you're using UUMac as a uucp transport engine, most of the information in this section doesn't apply to you. Fernmail allows UUMac to do all of the mail routing. Go read the UUMac documentation to understand how you can set up your Mac as a pathalias-based mail router. Then, if you wish, you may install routing resources as described below… but they'll be used only when you post netnews, not when you send mail.
You may create one or more mail-routing resources in the "Fernmail config" file. Fernmail will use the information in these resources to make more intelligent decisions about how to deliver mail. To edit this file, open it with ResEdit (if you're running System 7, you can drop the "Fernmail config" file's icon onto the ResEdit icon.
Routing information is stored in 'Rout' resources. There's a ResEdit template (a TMPL resource) for this resource-class included in the example "Fernmail config" file included with Fernmail. There's also a copy in the Fernmail application itself, in case you didn't receive a sample config file... if this is the case, simply copy this template from Fernmail and paste it into your new "Fernmail config" file, and all will be well. Don't try to edit the contents of this TMPL resource... it's for ResEdit's use when you create and edit 'Rout' resources.
The names and resource-numbers of 'Rout' resources are unimportant. You might want to give each 'Rout' the name of the site to which it applies... but that's entirely up to you.
To create your first 'Rout' resource, open the Fernmail config file, enter command-K (in ResEdit 2.1) or command-N (in ResEdit 1.2), and type the four characters 'Rout' into the resource-type field. Click OK.
When you create a 'Rout' resource, you'll need to fill in four pieces of information:
• The uucp name of one of your neighbors... simply type it into the field in the resource-editing window. This name must match one of the names which appears in the L.sys or Systems file of your uucp transport engine... otherwise, mail may drop into a black hole and disappear.
• A flag which indicates whether this uucp neighbor is capable of accepting mail for more than one person at a time (i.e. "rmail joe jim uunet!rick"). Most reasonably-modern Unix systems can handle multiple recipients; some older ones cannot. Click the "1" button if this neighbor can accept multiple recipients and can accept an "rmail" command of at least 128 bytes; click the "0" button otherwise.
• A flag which indicates whether this uucp neighbor allows you to run the "rnews" command. Neighbors for which this flag is set will be sent any netnews articles that you post.
• A list of zero or more additional site-names for which this uucp neighbor should be given mail. You may specify either a uucp sitename (e.g. "hisnode") or a domain-style dotted name (e.g. "hismachine.hisdomain.com"), or a partial domain name with a leading dot (e.g. ".com"), or an empty string. To add a name to the list, click once on the "*****" separator in the template, issue the command to insert a new entry (command-K in newer versions of ResEdit, and command-N in older ones I believe), tab to the new field, and enter a uucp sitename or a domain name.
You may create as many 'Rout' resources as you wish. They'll be searched in no particular order each time you send a message. Common-sense rules apply to the matching (exact matches only for host!user addresses; exact matches preferred for user@domain addresses; longest-match-on-the-right for partial domain names; an empty string means "match any if nothing else applies"). If no 'Rout' seems to apply, or if no 'Rout' resources have been supplied, Fernmail will punt and send the message to the uucp neighbor specified by the MAILSERVICE resource. Fernmail assumes that this neighbor cannot handle multiple recipients per message, and does not permit the posting of USENET news.
Creating aliases
You may create a set of mail aliases… simple names, which are expanded at run time into a list of mail addresses. To do this, use any convenient text editor (or Fernmail itself) to create a file called Alias. In this file, place commands of the form
alias name address1 address2 address3…
where "name" is the name to which you wish to refer to the alias, and "address1 address2 address3…" are the addresses to which the mail should be sent when you use this alias in a message. Store the Alias file in your home directory (along with your signature file, mbox, and so forth). You may use a different name for this file, if you wish; if you do so, you must change the ALIAS environment string in your configuration file.
You may include blank lines, and comment lines (beginning with a '#' character) if you wish. Lines may be up to 255 characters long. If you need to enter a longer alias, you may split the command into two or more lines, by ending each line (except the last) with a backslash. For example:
alias friends joe@nearby.site.edu frank@somewhere.else.com \
bob@yet.another.place.sf.us
Don't place any blank or comment lines in the middle of a multi-line alias command.
Fernmail's format for the Alias file is adapted from uupc. uupc 2.0 and 2.1 accept single-line alias commands only, require simple addresses (i.e. no <bracketed> addresses or (comments)) and are limited to 50 addresses and 255 characters. uupc 3.0 will accept multi-line aliases containing up 255 addresses; the 255 character/line and simple-address restrictions still apply. If you use uupc, and if you keep your Alias file's contents compatible with whatever version of uupc you're using, you can use a single Alias file with both programs. This would let you (for example) use your Mac as a uucp-based "mail reflector", to support a mailing list for a special-interest group.
The alias-expansion process is not recursive! That is to say, one alias cannot refer to another.
Creating a signature file
You can create a "signature" file, which is automatically appended to any messages that you send to outside addresses. To do this, simply use Fernmail or a text editor to create a short text file; store it in your home directory and name it "Signature" (or whatever your SIGNATURE environment string says). Please keep signature files short… long signatures waste disk space and network bandwidth, as they're duplicated over and over and over…
The signature file is not appended to the copies of messages delivered to your "mail.sent" file, nor is it appended to messages that you send to yourself or to other users on the same Macintosh.
Configurating Fernmail for multiple users
If more than one person uses Fernmail on your Macintosh, you can split the Fernmail configuration information into several files.
• Put the 'Rout' resources, and any configuration strings which apply to all users on your Mac, into the "Fernmail config" file (you may name it "Fernmail site config" if you prefer). Typically, these strings will include the machine and domain name, uucp transporter type, and the identities of the directories which Fernmail is to use… but will not include a NAME or USERNAME string. Place this file in the same folder with Fernmail (or in the System folder, where the Poor Man's Search Path will locate it).
• For each individual user: copy the "Sample user config" file provided with Fernmail, and name it (for example) "Joe's Fernmail config". Open this file with ResEdit, and install any configuration strings which apply only to the user who will "own" this file… typically, this will be the NAME and USERNAME strings. Place this user-specific configuration file in some convenient location. To start up Fernmail and "become" the user Joe, double-click on the "Joe's Fernmail config" file. If you start up Fernmail without double-clicking on a configuration-file icon, Fernmail will look for a "Fernmail user config" file by default (it won't complain if it doesn't find one).
There isn't any convenient way to "switch hats" (change user identities) after starting up Fernmail. To "become" a different user, you must quit Fernmail, and double-click on another user-configuration file. I may change this someday.
Brief technical explanation: Fernmail always opens the "Fernmail config" or "Fernmail site config" file first. It then opens any config file you've double-clicked upon (if you double-click on several simultaneously, the last one opened gets the cheese). It then opens the "Fernmail user config" file, but only if no config-file was double-clicked. Finally, it fetches the resources out of the files. Because the user config file (if present) was opened most recently, any resources in this file will override the corresponding resources in the site config file. Thus, you can use the site config file to hold common resources and/or defaults.
