naim@nucsrl.UUCP (Naim Abdullah) (10/30/86)
A while ago I posted an article asking for advise on how to
integrate csnet/uucp/arpanet. My main question was whether it
is necessary to throw away sendmail/smail and to switch to mmdf.
My thanks to Binayak Banerjee, Mark Horton, Brian Kantor, Bob Page,
Stephen Schaefer and John Sloan who responded to my article. Sorry
for taking so long to post this summary but I was busy with other
things.
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From: ihnp4!cbosgd!mark (Mark Horton)
Organization: AT&T Medical Information Systems, Columbus
Being on CSNET does not imply being on phonenet; if you're on the ARPANET
you can use TCP/IP instead for CSNET, and I'm sure you'll want to.
[ I didn't realize this until Mark pointed it out; we definitely want to
do that ]
There is a problem with running smail on an ARPANET machine; given an
address like user@FOO.COM, you can't easily tell whether to hand it off
to smail or to SMTP. There's a sendmail based solution at Illinois;
contact Ray Essick (essick@b.cs.uiuc.edu or uiudcds!essick) about it.
I understand okstate is running PMDF on top of sendmail; you might want
to check this out.
Mark
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From ihnp4!cbosgd!wright!jsloan (John Sloan)
Organization: Wright State University
We are running Sendmail on our UNIX VAX-11/750. Our cf file currently
supports CSNET, local UUCP, local TCP/IP, USENET and UUCP with pathalias,
and as a local mod, DECnet using DEC's DECnet/Ultrix product (we're
running Ultrix-32 V1.2 which is 4.2BSD + some 4.3 + some DEC stuff).
You certainly don't have to use MMDF. We use PMDF, a version which runs
under Sendmail. Our cf file for Sendmail is one we _heavily_ customized
(mostly for subdomains and DECnet) from Gene Spafford's cf distribution
from Georgia Tech.
[ the word "_heavily_" scares me; I am not a sendmail guru and don't
really want to become one ]
You can get PMDF _and_ spaf's cf distribution from the CSNET CIC. Its
easy and it really really works.
You may want to think about using PMDF and Sendmail. I would seriously
consider switching, just because MMDF should be a tad simpler to
maintain, but I don't see any way to integrate the DECnet stuff into
MMDF, and our Sendmail routes mail between all the VMS machines and
all the UNIX machines on the common Ethernet. Hence we are reluctant to
muck with it too much.
[ we don't have DECNET so that isn't a problem; our vms machine(s) run
a vms uucp to receive mail from the vaxen running 4.3 bsd.
One thing that attracts me to mmdf is that it is
easier to understand than the sendmail.cf file. On the other hand
you only have to get the sendmail.cf stuff, right once and then
forget about it ]
BTW, spaf's cf stuff handles routing from CSNET to BITNET, MAILNET,
ARPANET, etc. Pretty slick.
______________________________________________________________________
John Sloan jsloan@wright.{CSNET,UUCP} ...!cbosgd!wright!jsloan
Computer Science Department, Wright State University, Dayton OH, 45435
+1 513 873 2491 belong(opinons,jsloan). belong(opinions,_):-!,fail.
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From: ihnp4!osu-eddie!bgsuvax!schaefer (Stephen Schaefer)
We run our primary uucp, ethernet(SMTP/TCP/IP), and pmdf from
sendmail, but unless you are SURE mmdf is a monstrous crock, I
wouldn't recommend sendmail: it took me better than a year real time
and better than three "man-months" to get the thing working. I am
working on our sendmail.cf right now so that it will be more portable
(I had to change some sendmail source code).
[ this letter kind of scares me off sendmail; I certainly don't
want to spend 'better than three "man-months"' hacking with
sendmail rules ; mmdf begins to look better and better but read on ..]
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From ihnp4!masscomp!ulowell!page (Bob Page)
Organization: University of Lowell
Wow! Here I am, ripping out our MMDF software because after 3 days of
work (no, it does not just 'drop in'), I can't figure it out. We run
the whole sendmail/pathalias/domain stuff under UNIX, and we have
PMDF running on VMS, just as you do. I want CSNET on our UNIX machine,
but not if we have to throw away our existing mail system.
I've backed out of the MMDF mailer for now. I was just about to post
a message similar to yours asking for help.
..Bob
--
UUCP: wanginst!ulowell!page Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept
VOX: +1 617 452 5000 x2976 Lowell MA 01854 USA
[ one thing I have to say about mmdf is that it has significantly
more documentation than sendmail ]
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From ihnp4!bpa!sjuvax!sjuvax!sjuvax.sju.edu!bbanerje Tue Oct 28 16:58:23 1986
Organization: St. Joseph's Univ., Phila. PA
Hi,
We have a csnet connection, and use PMDF as the delivery agent. The
solution that I used was the following.
Sendmail |--- uucp bang addresses -----> uumail/smail
|--- domain addresses --> restrict ---> uumail/smail
|
------> pmdf-send
Restrict is a local utility that will matches the sender against a
file to see if they have permission to use CSNET. If not, the
uumail (soon to be changed to smail) delivery agent is exec'd and
handed the address to resolve.
If you didn't have restricted access, you could put the resolving
logic in sendmail.cf instead.
Regards,
Binayak Banerjee
{allegra | astrovax | bpa | burdvax}!sjuvax!bbanerje
bbanerje%sjuvax.sju.edu@relay.cs.net
[ we too restrict access to csnet (in my opinion that is wrong but that
discussion doesn't belong here) anyway given these restrictions, the
above seems a fairly nice way to implement them in sendmail ]
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From ihnp4!jack!sdcsvax!brian (Brian Kantor)
Organization: UCSD wombat breeding society
We don't have a CSNET connection, but we do have uucp and arpanet, and
we serve as a gateway between them. I am enclosing our sendmail.cf file
from the system ("sdcsvax") which is the main mail/news gateway for the
campus, and which is connected to the arpanet and does pathalias-based
uucp forwarding. If you find that you are indeed able to continue using
sendmail, I think you'll be able to get some good ideas from this.
This, like almost all sendmail.cf files, is really a bunch of hacks
that have evolved, but I think it is still readable. I'm sure there is
redundant code and rules that are never really used, but I've not had
the time to clean it up. Sorry.
< a big sendmail.cf file -deleted here>
Brian Kantor UCSD Office of Academic Computing
Academic Network Operations Group
UCSD B-028, La Jolla, CA 92093 USA
+1 619 534-6865
---
We still haven't made a final decision but chances are that we are going
to try installing mmdf (mainly because we don't have the time required to
become sendmail gurus). By the way, mmdf *can* make use of pathalias
output (these are the "uucp channel tables"). If it works, wonderful, if
it doesn't then back to the drawing board...
Naim Abdullah
Dept. of EECS,
Northwestern University
{ihnp4, chinet}!nucsrl!naim