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- Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!decwrl!decwrl!infopiz!mccall!ipmdf-newsgate!list
- From: klensin@infoods.mit.edu (John C Klensin)
- Newsgroups: vmsnet.mail.pmdf
- Subject: RE: Mail User agents
- Message-ID: <713977262.781166.KLENSIN@INFOODS.MIT.EDU>
- Date: 16 Aug 92 15:01:02 GMT
- Organization: The Internet
- Lines: 35
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- Resent-Date: 16 Aug 1992 11:01:02 -0400 (EDT)
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-
- >> So the concept employed is that there is one central place
- >> that stays up all day, and you can access from all over the place. The
- >> problem now is that PC and Mac users expect a GUI as opposed to the
- >>...
- >That's why "store and forward" methods like POP have been very popular for
- >PCs and MACs of late. There some very nice looking POP client programs
- >available to overcome the issue of not having your personal computer
- >turned on all the time.
-
- Jack,
- While not disagreeing with anything you've said, I think a
- terminology clarification would be helpful before this discussion goes
- down the path of a parallel discussion about these mail-receiving
- protocols...
- Strictly speaking, one could easily construct "store and forward", and
- a solution to the shut-off workstation problem with SMTP alone. You
- would set up MX records for the workstations that would deposit the mail
- somewhere else if the workstation was off, e.g.,
- workstation MX 0 workstation
- workstation MX 10 postoffice
- You would then set "postoffice" up with a channel (or equivalent) for
- delivery to local workstations distinct from its channels for delivery
- to the rest of the network. And you would set a really aggressive retry
- schedule on that channel s.t., when the workstation came up, it would
- get its mail dumped on it in rather short order. You'd be effectively
- polling its SMTP port all the time, and delivering as soon as it came
- up.
-
- Is this a good idea? Well, no, and for a number of reasons. But it is
- "store and forward". POP et al., which depend on the workstation
- announcing to the server that they have come up and then retrieving the
- mail, are more like "store and fetch".
- --john
-
- Is th
-