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- From: vince@victrola.wa.com (Vince Skahan)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.os.linux.admin,comp.answers,news.answers
- Subject: Linux Electronic Mail HOWTO
- Followup-To: poster
- Date: 16 Mar 1994 05:27:17 GMT
- Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Lines: 402
- Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Matt Welsh)
- Message-ID: <2m65bl$e15@bigblue.oit.unc.edu>
- Reply-To: vince@victrola.wa.com (Vince Skahan)
- NNTP-Posting-Host: calzone.oit.unc.edu
- Originator: mdw@sunSITE
- Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu comp.os.linux.announce:1953 comp.os.linux.admin:5614 comp.answers:4183 news.answers:16452
-
- Archive-name: linux/howto/mail
- Last-modified: 26 January 1994
-
- The Linux Electronic Mail HOWTO
- by Vince Skahan, <vince@victrola.wa.com>
- v1.4, Last Modified 26 January 1994
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- This document describes the setup and care+feeding of Electronic Mail
- (e-mail) under Linux.
-
- You need to read this if you plan to communicate locally or to remote sites
- via electronic mail.
-
- You probably do *not* need to read this document if don't exchange
- electronic mail with other users on your system or with other sites.
-
-
- 0. Introduction
-
- The intent of this document is to answer some of the questions and
- comments that appear to meet the definition of 'frequently asked
- questions' about e-mail software under Linux.
-
- This document and the corresponding UUCP and News 'HOWTO' documents
- collectively supersede the UUCP-NEWS-MAIL-FAQ that has previously
- been posted to comp.os.linux.announce.
-
-
- 0.1 New versions of this document
-
- New versions of this document will be periodically posted to
- comp.os.linux.announce, comp.answers, and news.answers. They will
- also be added to the various anonymous ftp sites who archive such
- information including sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO.
-
-
- 0.2 Feedback
-
- I am interested in any feedback, positive or negative, regarding
- the content of this document via e-mail. Definitely contact me if
- you find errors or obvious omissions.
-
- I read, but do not necessarily respond to, all e-mail I receive.
- Requests for enhancements will be considered and acted upon based on
- that day's combination of available time, merit of the request, and
- daily blood pressure :-)
-
- Flames will quietly go to /dev/null so don't bother.
-
- Feedback concerning the actual format of the document should go to
- the HOWTO coordinator - Matt Welsh (mdw@sunsite.unc.edu).
-
-
- 0.3 Copyright Information
-
- The Mail-HOWTO is copyrighted (c)1994 Vince Skahan.
-
- A verbatim copy may be reproduced or distributed in any medium physical
- or electronic without permission of the author. Translations are
- similarly permitted without express permission if it includes a notice
- on who translated it.
-
- Short quotes may be used without prior consent by the author.
- Derivative work and partial distributions of the Mail-HOWTO must be
- accompanied with either a verbatim copy of this file or a pointer to
- the verbatim copy.
-
- Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the
- author would like to be notified of any such distributions.
-
- In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through
- as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright
- on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to
- redistribute the HOWTOs.
-
- We further want that ALL information provided in the HOWTOS is
- disseminated. If you have questions, please contact Matt Welsh, the
- Linux HOWTO coordinator, at mdw@sunsite.unc.edu, or +1 607 256 7372.
-
-
- 0.4 Standard Disclaimer
-
- Of course, I disavow any potential liability for the contents of this
- document. Use of the concepts, examples, and/or other content of this
- document is entirely at your own risk.
-
-
- 0.5 Other sources of information
-
- LINUX HOWTO Documents:
- ======================
-
- There is plenty of exceptional material provided in the other Linux
- HOWTO documents and from the Linux DOC project. In particular, you
- might want to take a look at the following:
-
- - the serial communications HOWTO
- - the ethernet HOWTO
- - the Linux Networking Guide
-
- USENET:
- =======
- comp.mail.elm the ELM mail system.
- comp.mail.mh The Rand Message Handling system.
- comp.mail.mime Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.
- comp.mail.misc General discussions about computer mail.
- comp.mail.multi-media Multimedia Mail.
- comp.mail.mush The Mail User's Shell (MUSH).
- comp.mail.sendmail the BSD sendmail agent.
- comp.mail.uucp Mail in the uucp environment.
-
-
- Mailing Lists:
- ==============
-
- There is a smail-3.1 mailing list.
-
- To join (or get off) the list, send mail to
- smail3-users-request@cs.athabascau.ca
-
- make sure that you include the address at which you want to receive
- mail in the text of the message.
-
- To send a message to the list, send it to
- smail3-users@cs.athabascau.ca.
-
- Books:
- ======
-
- The following is a non-inclusive set of books that will help...
-
- 'Managing UUCP and USENET' from O'Reilly and Associates is in my
- opinion the best book out there for figuring out the programs and
- protocols involved in being a USENET site.
-
- 'Unix Communications' from The Waite Group contains a nice
- description of all the pieces (and more) and how they fit together.
-
- 'Sendmail' from O'Reilly and Associates looks to like the
- definitive reference on sendmail-v8 and sendmail+IDA.
- It's a "must have" for anybody hoping to make sense out of
- sendmail without bleeding in the process.
-
- 'The Internet Complete Reference' from Osborne is a fine reference
- book that explains the various services available on Internet and
- is a great "one-stop-shopping" source for information on news, mail,
- and various other Internet resources.
-
-
- 0.6 Where *NOT* to look for help
-
- There is nothing 'special' about configuring and running mail under
- Linux (any more). Accordingly, you almost certainly do *NOT* want
- to be posting generic mail-related questions to the comp.os.linux.*
- newsgroups.
-
- Unless your posting is truly Linux-specific (ie, "please tell me
- what routers are already compiled into the SLS1.03 version of
- smail3.1.28") you should be asking your questions in one of the
- newsgroups or mailing lists referenced above.
-
- Let me repeat that.
-
- There is virtually no reason to post anything mail-related in the
- comp.os.linux hierarchy any more. There are existing newsgroups in
- the comp.mail.* hierarchy to handle *ALL* your questions.
-
-
- 1.0 Hardware Requirements
-
- There are no specific hardware requirements for mail under Linux.
-
- You'll need some sort of 'transport' software to connect to remote
- systems, which means either tcp-ip or uucp. This could mean that
- you need a modem or ethernet card (depending on your setup).
-
-
- 2.0 Getting the software
-
- In general, I grab my sources from ftp.uu.net and the other fine
- archive sites on Internet. In addition, Linux-specific binary ports
- are found in the usual Linux distrbutions and on the usual Linux
- anonymous ftp sites (sunsite.unc.edu and tsx-11.mit.edu in
- particular).
-
- The newspak-2.0.tar.z distribution contains config files and readme
- files related to building uucp, news, and mail software under Linux
- from the various freely-available sources. It can usually be found
- on sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/Linux/system/Mail.
-
-
- 3.0 Mail 'Transport Agents'
-
- This section contains information related to 'transport agents',
- which means the underlying software that connects your local system
- to remote systems.
-
-
- 3.1 Smail v3.1
-
- Smail3.1 seems to be a de-facto standard transport agent for uucp-only
- sites and for some smtp sites. It compiles without patching from
- the sources. In addition, smail is provided in binary form in the
- SLS distribution of Linux.
-
- The newspak distribution contains config files for smail3.1.28 under
- Linux that you can use to start with.
-
- If you're building smail from sources, you need to have
- CASE_NO_NEWLINES=true in your os/linux file so that 'sed' gives
- you shell scripts that work properly.
-
- For a uucp-only system that has a MX-record and that wants a
- domainized header (who goes through a smart-host for everything),
- these are the entire config files you'll need:
-
- replace 'subdomain.domain' with your domain name
- replace 'myhostname' with you un-domainized hostname
- replace 'my_uucp_neighbor' with the uucp name of your upstream site
-
- #-------- /usr/local/lib/smail/config -----------------
- #
- # domains we belong to
- visible_domain=subdomain.domain:uucp
- #
- # who we're known as (fully-qualified-site-name)
- visible_name=myhostname.subdomain.domain
- #
- # who we go through
- smart_path=my_uucp_neighbor
- #
- #---------- /usr/local/lib/smail/paths --------------
- #
- # we're a domainized site, make sure we accept mail to both names
- myhostname %s
- myhostname.subdomain.domain %s
- #
- #-------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- To run smail as a smtp daemon, add the following to /etc/inetd.conf:
- smtp stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/smtpd smtpd
-
- Outgoing mail gets sent automatically, when using elm. If your
- internet link is down when you send mail, then the mail sits in
- '/usr/spool/smail/input'. When the link next comes up, 'runq' is
- run which causes the mail to be sent.
-
-
- 3.2 Sendmail+IDA
-
- There is a nice binary distribution of sendmail5.65c+IDA on sunsite
- in pub/Linux/system/Mail that I highly recommend. I run a uucp-only
- site and use sendmail5.65c+IDA instead of smail3.1.28 due to the
- incredible ease of use.
-
- To install it...
- - you'll probably want to remove (or rename) all the files from
- smail (see the /install/installed directory if you are SLS)
- to be safe.
- - cd to / then 'gunzip -c sendmail5.65c+IDA.tpz | tar xvf -'
- - cd to /usr/local/src/sendmail5.65c+IDA/ida/cf and copy the example
- local.m4 file to 'yourhostname.m4'. Edit out the distributed
- hostname, aliases, and smarthost and put in the correct one
- for your site. The default file is for a uucp-only site
- who has domainized headers. Then 'make yourhostname.cf'
- and move the resulting file to /etc/sendmail.cf
- - if you are uucp-only, you do *NOT* need to create any of the
- tables mentioned in the README.linux file. Just edit
- the .m4 file, make sendmail.cf, and start testing it.
- - if you're uucp-only and you talk to sites in addition to your
- 'smart-host', you'll need to add uucpxtable entries for
- each (or mail to them will also go through the smart host)
- and run dbm against the revised uucpxtable.
- - if you change your .cf file, be sure to refreeze your config
- with /usr/lib/sendmail -bz to make the changes take effect.
-
- Another nice thing is that if you have mail.debug set and you
- run syslogd, your incoming and outgoing mail messages will get
- logged. See the /etc/syslog.conf file for details.
-
- There's a new version of sendmail5.67b+IDA1.5 out at ftp.uiuc.edu
- that also compiles and runs fine under Linux. Grab the older
- version from sunsite and look in the sources provided there for
- Linux-specific config files. Rich Braun has done a great job in
- 'blazing the trail' so getting the current version to compile and
- run properly is as easy as typing 'make'.
-
- If you're going to run sendmail+IDA, I strongly recommend you go
- to the sendmail5.67b+IDA1.5 version since all required Linux-specific
- patches are now in the vanilla sources and several security holes
- have been plugged.
-
- I'm planning to put out an integrated mailx+sendmail5.67b+IDA1.5
- binary kit as soon as I can get around to it (stealing Ian's mailx
- and the new sendmail version based on Rich's original patches).
- Stay tuned...
-
-
- 3.3 Sendmail 8.6
-
- Sendmail 8.6.5 from Berkeley is the latest major revision after
- sendmail5. It has wonderful built-in support for building under
- Linux. Just 'make linux' and you'll be all set.
-
-
- 3.4 Other 'transport agents'
-
- The following also are known to run under Linux. Consult
- 'archie' for details regarding how to find them...
-
- smail2.5 - very simple UUCP-based smail
-
-
- 4.0 Mail 'User Agents'
-
- This section contains information related to 'user agents', which
- means the software the user sees and uses. This software relies on
- the 'transport agents' mentioned above.
-
-
- 4.1 Elm
-
- Elm compiles, installs, and runs flawlessly under Linux. For more
- information, see the elm sources and installation instructions.
-
- The only thing to know is that Elm's Configure script incorrectly
- sets the 'ranlib' variable in config.sh. When Configure gives you
- the chance to edit config.sh before proceeding, please do so and
- set "ranlib='ranlib'" or the binaries will compile but not link.
-
- Elm and filter need to be mode 2755 (group mail) with
- /usr/spool/mail mode 775 and group mail.
-
- If you use a binary distribution like the one in SLS, you'll need
- to create a /usr/local/lib/elm/elm.rc file to override the compiled-in
- hostname and domain information:
-
- replace 'subdomain.domain' with your domain name
- replace 'myhostname' with you un-domainized hostname
- replace 'my_uucp_neighbor' with the uucp name of your upstream site
-
- #---------- /usr/local/lib/elm/elm.rc ------------------
- #
- # this is the unqualified hostname
- hostname = myhostname
- #
- # this is the local domain
- hostdomain = subdomain.domain
- #
- # this is the fully qualified hostname
- hostfullname = myhostname.subdomain.domain
- #
- #--------------------------------------------------------
-
- One thing you want to be aware of is that if you have Elm compiled
- to be MIME-able, you need metamail installed and in your path or
- Elm will not be able to read MIME mail you've received. Metamail
- is available on thumper.bellcore.com and of course via 'archie'.
-
-
- 4.2 Mailx
-
- There is a fine binary implementation of mailx located on the various
- Linux archive sites. Make sure you grab version 5.3b or later since
- there are security problems in v5.3a.
-
- The only potential problem I'm aware of is that it seems to be
- compiled in a way that requires /usr/lib/smail rather than
- /usr/lib/sendmail as a transport agent. You probably need a link
- if you run sendmail on your system.
-
- I strongly recommend removing the old 'edmail' stuff from SLS
- and replacing it with mailx. This is rumored to be done already
- in the current SLS.
-
-
- 4.3 Other user agents
-
- The following also are known to run under Linux. Consult
- 'archie' for details regarding how to find them...
-
- Pine - from the Univ. of Washington
- Metamail - allows MIME support
- mh - yet another way to handle mail
- deliver - file/process mail based on rules
- procmail - file/process mail based on rules
- Majordomo - manages e-mail lists
- Mserv - provide files-by-mail
-
-
- 5.0 Acknowledgements
-
- The following people have helped in the assembly of the information
- (and experience) that helped make this document possible:
-
- Steve Robbins, Ian Kluft, Rich Braun, Ian Jackson,
- Syd Weinstein, Ralf Sauther, Martin White, Matt Welsh
-
- If I forgot anybody, my apologies...
-
-
-