NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/comp/mail/elm/3260

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Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm,news.answers
Path: sparky!uunet!ukma!darwin.sura.net!spool.mu.edu!dsinc!syd
From: [e-mail] (Syd Weinstein)
Subject: Monthly Elm Posting from the Elm Development Group
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Followup-To: poster
Keywords: monthly elm posting
Sender: [e-mail] (Syd Weinstein)
Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc., Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 20:27:13 GMT
Approved: [e-mail]
Expires: Thu, 10 Dec 1992 20:27:14 GMT
Lines: 412

Archive-name: elm-monthly/part1

This is the monthly Elm Posting from the Elm Development Group and
your Elm Coordinator.  Please send all questions and comments about
this posting or Elm itself to [e-mail] (dsinc!elm).  See the
README section of this posting for info on some Elm 2.4 FAQ's.
This posting generated:
Tue Nov 10 15:24:15 EST 1992

Current release version: Elm 2.4 PL8
    This version was released at patch level 0.
    comp.sources.unix Posting-number: (Not yet posted)
    Archive-name: (Not yet posted)
    Patches are posted to comp.sources.bugs and comp.mail.elm
    After they are stable, patches are sent to comp.sources.unix
        Five patch sets have been posted, 1/2, 3, 4/5, 6, 7/8.
        Archive-name: (No patches yet posted to comp.sources.unix)
    Patches are available from the archive server at DSI.COM:
    send mail to [e-mail]
    send elm index

Note: the archive server will not respond to users names root, daemon,
postmaster or mailer-daemon.  Please use your own login when requesting
information from the archive server.

Planned next version: Elm 3.0
    Current Elm 3.0 status: Development expected to start 1/1/93
    Expected release date: Sometime in 1994.

As of release 2.1, Elm is now being developed by a cooperative venture
of volunteers loosely being called the Elm Development Group.  There are
approximately 40 developers and an additional 16 testers, participating
at various levels of activity.

Comments, bug reports, feature requests, etc.  should be sent to
[e-mail].  I try to ack most reports, but over 60% fail due to
invalid addresses.  Note, I strip your address to name@fqdn or name@site
before replying.

New releases will be posted to comp.sources.unix, patches will be posted
to comp.sources.bugs.  After patches have been proven and out for a
while, they will be posted to comp.sources.unix.  Patches are available
from the archive server at DSI.COM.  The complete release as of the
current patch level is available via anonymous uucp from dsinc.  Also
available via anonymous uucp are postscript output files of the current
documentation.  This service is provided for those sites that have
postscript but do not have di-troff.  Instructions for obtaining files
via anonymous uucp from dsinc are also available from the archive
server.  Elm is too large to mail, don't bother asking.  Also don't
mail me asking for me to send you patches, I won't.  Use the archive
server.  The archive-server will not respond to users named root,
daemon, or postmaster to prevent loops.  Please do not use those names
for archive requests.  PLEASE do not send archive requests to [e-mail].

The following sites have agreed to make Elm available via anonymous ftp.

    Site            Contact
    In the US/Canada:
    wuarchive.wustl.edu    David J. Camp, [e-mail]
          (128.252.135.4)

    ftp.uu.net
      (137.39.1.9, 192.48.96.9)

    In Europe:
    ftp.cs.ruu.nl        Edwin Kremer, [e-mail]
    (131.211.80.17)

    In the UK:
    uk.ac.soton.ecs        [e-mail] (bitnet)
    (152.78.64.201)            [e-mail] (JANET)

        In Australia:
        ftp.adelaide.edu.au     Mark Prior, [e-mail]
          (129.127.40.3)

    In Taiwan:
    NCTUCCCA.edu.tw        Huang, Chih-Hsien [e-mail]
    (140.111.3.21)


The following sites have agreed to make Elm available via anonymous
uucp:
    Site            Contact
    uunet            Elm is /networking/mail/elm

    dsinc            Syd Weinstein
                [e-mail], dsinc!syd
                note: anon uucp info changed 12/16/91
                For further info, send an e-mail
                message to [e-mail] stating:
                send anon how-to dir


    stanton            Steven P. Donegan
                [e-mail], stanton!donegan
                714-894-2246 uucp - nuucp no word
                Elm is /u/public/elm2.3.tar.Z


-----------------------------README SECTION-----------------------------
First: See the README file that is part of the Elm Source Distribution.
Many questions might be answered there.

Where do I get the "Elm Reference Guide", "Elm Users Guide", ...
    Elm has several documents (over 100 pages worth of doc)
    that were written to help users install, support and use Elm.
    These are in the doc directory of the source distribution.
    Contact your systems administrator for a copy of the documents.
    For those sites that do not have troff (either di-troff or
    o-troff) and do have postscript printers, dsinc (dsinc.dsi.com)
    has a copy of the docs already in postscript format available
    for anonymous uucp or ftp.

Why do I get the remote signature on replies to local mail?  Can I
define what addresses are local?
    In Elm 2.4, any address with an ! or @ in it is considered
    remote, without those characters, its local.
    Any reply is qualified to prevent alias expansion.  If you had
    an alias in your private Elm aliases that matched the name of a
    user on your system, but that alias did not point to that user,
    there would be no way to reply to the message.  It would end up
    going to the alias name, not the user that mailed you.  To
    prevent this, Elm fully qualifies (adds the site name) to a
    reply address.  This makes the simplistic signature detector
    think that the message is 'remote'. This is not slated to
    change until 3.0.

From comp.mail.elm, [e-mail] (DaviD W. Sanderson) writes:
>... whoever wrote the default termcap
>and/or terminfo descriptions for xterm included in the ti/te strings
>the special escape sequences to make xterm switch between the normal
>and alternate screen buffers.  These sequences are:
>
>    \E[?47h        - use alternate screen buffer
>    \E[?47l        - use normal screen buffer
>...
>The elm code is just fine as it is.  If you change it so that it
>doesn't ever send ti/te, you'll just break elm for somebody else.  Fix
>your termcap/terminfo definition instead.

Why can't I get SGI to work for non ROOT.....
    SGI, at 3.3, doesn't have vfork, but instead a stub that does
    not work.  Make sure vfork is undef in the configuration.

How do I link Elm on IBM AIX?
    On IBM RISC 6000 AIX, 3.2 or newer, to compile Elm
during Configure, specify -U__STR__ to the 'Additional CFLAGS'
question.  No other changes are needed.

    On IBM RISC 6000 AIX, prior to 3.2, you might get string
funtion errors on the compile.  The solution is to do the following:
    Look at /usr/lpp/bos/bsdsport. It tells you
    to add following lines to /etc/xlc.cfg

    * BSD 4.3 c compiler stanza
    bsdcc:    use       = DEFLT
        crt       = /lib/crt0.o
        mcrt       = /lib/mcrt0.o
        gcrt       = /lib/gcrt0.o
        libraries  = -lbsd, -lc
        proflibs   = -L/lib/profiled,-L/usr/lib/profiled
        options       = -H512,-T512, -qlanglvl=extended, -qnoro, -D_BSD, -D_NONSTD_TYPES, -D_NO_PROTO, -D_BSD_INCLUDES, -bnodelcsect, -U__STR__, -U__MATH__

    And then link bsdcc to xlc and use bsdcc instead of cc.

In addition, Elm should be linked with the curses lib and not termcap lib
if /etc/termcap is not there. (You can always copy the termcap database
to etc (or make a symlink)).


    On 386bsd, the shell that is shipped with the system, ash, does
not work for sending messages within Elm.  Mail messages have headers only
and no body.  Replacing the shell with bash (from GNU) seems to solve the
problem.  The bash shell is in the 'etc' distribution of 386bsd.


Why does my mail to Dave Taylor bounce?
    His new address is limbo!taylor, or, [e-mail]

--END--END--END--END--END----README SECTION----END--END--END--END--END--

Starting with release 2.2, the Elm Development group will attempt to
provide official patches to the release version to fix problems reported
at the same time we are working on the next release.  Also starting with
release 2.2 a list of known problems will be published in this posting.

Known bugs in Elm 2.4 PL5:
    The following are from the Elm 2.4 "To.Do" list that are
considered bugs, not enhancements, that have not yet been done.  Items
which are enhancements are not listed here.  It is our intention to
release changes to 2.4 for some, but not necessarly all of these.  Some
of these will only be fixed in 3.0.  (It depends on how extensive the
change is to fix it, and what else it ties into in the 3.0 work).
Items marked fixed will be deleted from the list on the next posting.

1.  General bugs and configuration bugs

GB01 The ordering of some sets of configuration    questions could
     be    improved.  In some cases, the answer to    a later    question
     renders an    earlier    question moot.    In such    cases, the latter
     should proceed the    former so that the former would    only be
     asked if need be.

GB02 All programs need to use the same algorithm elm(1)    and
     frm(1) use    in establishing    the user's id and the user's in-
     coming mailbox.

GB10 [next item    goes here]

2.  Elm(1) bugs

EB02 Encryption    is not fully implemented in ELM.  In elm(1) we
     have the following    problems:

     When `b' (bouncing) a message or `f' (forwarding) a message
     without editing, an encrypted section of text in the origi-
     nal message wrongly gets encrypted    a second time.    The func-
     tion that looks for encryption delimiters needs to    know to
     ignore them in these situations.

     When `p' (printing) or `|'    (piping) a message, an encrypted
     message does not get decrypted.  This is because elm(1) in-
     vokes readmsg(1) to pull the message out of the folder and
     readmsg(1)    does not deal with encryption at all.  Even if we
     gave readmsg(1) the ability to decrypt messages, we'd still
     have problems because readmsg itself would    have to    prompt
     for the decryption    key.  Now if we    were printing or piping    a
     set of tagged messages, readmsg(1)    would have to prompt for
     decryption    keys for each message individually.  In    doing
     that readmsg(1) would have    to indicate which message of the
     set it was    working    on.  This would    be difficult since
     readmsg(1)    uses actual ordinal message position in    the fold-
     er, and that would    be confusing if    the user has folders
     sorted in other than mailbox order: the message numbers
     wouldn't match up.     The solution therefore    involves replac-
     ing readmsg(1) with a new function    in elm(1) to handle the
     `p' or `|'    commands, and this function would need to detect
     the encryption delimiters and prompt for the decryption key.
     Furthermore, readmsg(1) should get    enhanced to deal with en-
     crypted text, or else carry a disclaimer that it doesn't
     work on encrypted text.

     When including the    text of    an original message for    a `r'
     (reply) or    `f' (forward), encrypted sections do not get de-
     crypted first, resulting in decrypted text    inside the in-
     clude text.  This means that the elm(1) function that in-
     cludes text of an original    message    must detect encryption
     delimiters    and decrypt encrypted text before including it in
     a reply or    forwarded message.

EB26 When using    an address of the form "node!user@domain" and
     having Elm    convert    it to an all ! address,    RFC976 states
     that the proper address should be domain!node!user, but Elm
     translates    that to    node!domain!user.

EB36 When Elm is configured not    to look    at the password    file for
     full name information, it sometimes places    the user name in
     ()s as the    comment    in addition to the full    name.

EB41 [next item    goes here]

3.  Utilities bugs

UB02 Newmail(1)    displays a null    "From" when a message does not
     contain a From: header line.  It needs to be able to parse
     the return    path and display the "last two words" of it, just
     like elm(1) does  when it encounters a message without a
     From:

UB07 Arepdaemon    has a bad security hole    because    it does    not check
     to    see if the user    can read the file used for reply.

UB09 Autoreply.c tries to unlink the file "/etc/autoreply.data"
     when there    is only    one entry in it    and does not check the
     return value of unlink.  This can have bad    repercussions if
     the unlink    fails because the program nevertheless reports
     success.

UB13 If    filter is run on a system that allows multiple delivery
     agents, that can start up multiple    copies of filter,
     delivery of messages can get intermixed.  Filter needs a
     complete interlocking to prevent this.

UB14 [next item    goes here]



                           The Elm(tm) Mail System


            (C) Copyright 1988-1992, USENET Community Trust
        (C) Copyright 1986,1987, by Dave Taylor

            An Overview of the Elm Mail System
            ----------------------------------
1. What is Elm?

    Currently on Unix, there seems to be a preponderence of line-oriented
software.  This is most unfortunate as most of the software on Unix tends to
be pretty darn hard to use!  I believe that there is more than a slight
correlation between the two, and, since I was myself having problems using
"mailx" with high-volume mail, I created a new mail system.

    In the lingo of the mail guru, Elm is a "User Agent" system,
    it's designed to run with "sendmail" or "/bin/rmail" or any
other UNIX Mail Transport Agent (according to what's on your system)
and is a full replacement of programs like "/bin/mail" and "mailx".
The system is more than just a single program, however, and includes
programs like "frm" to list a 'table of contents' of your mail,
"printmail" to quickly paginate mail files (to allow 'clean'
printouts), and "autoreply", a systemwide daemon that can autoanswer
mail for people while they're on vacation without having multiple
copies spawned on the system.

2. What's New about Elm?

    The most significant difference between Elm and earlier mail
systems is that Elm is screen-oriented.  Upon further use, however,
users will find that Elm is also quite a bit easier to use, and quite a
bit more "intelligent" about sending mail and so on.   For example, say
you're on "usenet" and receive a message from someone on the Internet.
The sender also "cc'd" another person on Internet.  With Elm you can
simply G)roup reply and it will build the correct return addresses.

    There are lots of subtleties like that in the program, most of
which you'll probably find when you need them.

3. What systems does it work on?

    The Elm development group uses almost every UNIX system out
there between all of its volunteers.  Elm runs on USL System V, BSD,
SunOS, Apollo, UTS, Pyramid and Xenix and should run on almost any Unix
systems without any modifications (if there turn out to be
modifications, please notify the Elm Development Group as soon as
possible).

4. Does it obey existing mail standards?

    Yes!  That's another of the basic reasons the program was
originally written!  To ensure that the date field, the "From:" line
and so on were all added in the correct format.  The program is 100%
correct according to the RFC-822 electronic mail header protocol
guide.

5. What were the main motivating factors for Dave to write Elm?

    The first two I've already mentioned, but here's a (somewhat
partial) list;

    -  To have a mail system that exploited the CRT instead of
       assuming I'm on a teletype.

    - To have a mailer that was 100% correct when dealing with
      network mail (ie RFC-822).

    - To create a system that needed no documentation for the
      casual user, but was still powerful enough and sophisticated
      enough for a mail expert.

    - To write a "significant" piece of software as a learning
      experience (I admit it!)

    - To find out how reasonable it is to try to modify a program
      to meet the expectations of the users, rather than vice-versa.

    - To basically correct some of the dumb things that the current
      mailers do, like letting you send mail to addresses that it
      could trivially figure out are going to result in 'dead.letter'

    - To tie in intimately with the pathalias program output, and
      allow users to specify machine!user or user@machine and have
      the COMPUTER do the work of figuring out addresses...

6. Is it reliable?

    The mailer, in various incarnations, has logged literally
thousands upon thousands of hours without any problems that aren't
now corrected.  As new problems arise they're dealt with in as
rapid a manner as possible...

7. Disclaimers

    The author of this program will deny all liability for any
damages, either real or imagined, due to the execution of this program
or anything related to either the software or the system.  Furthermore,
the entire system and all source within, including the presentation
screens and commands, are legally copyrighted by the author, and while
they can be used, and abused, for public domain systems, it will be in
violation of the law if used in systems or programs sold for profit.

    By installing the mailer or even extracting it from the network,
you are agreeing to the above disclaimer.

8. Finally

    I think it's a good program, and I can cite at least 75 people
who would (begrudgingly, I'm sure) agree.  You should most certainly
install the program and try it!!


                -- Dave Taylor
                [e-mail]
                -- Syd Weinstein, Coordinator
                Elm Development Group
                [e-mail]

--
========================================================================
Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP          Elm Coordinator - Current 2.4PL08
Datacomp Systems, Inc.                 Projected 3.0 Release: ??? ?,1994
[e-mail] or dsinc!syd      Voice: [phone], FAX: [phone]