tp@ndm20 (09/16/85)
/* Written 10:57 am Sep 11, 1985 by davecl@orca.UUCP in ndm20:net.mail */
Just a short note...
There are at least a couple of other Unix mailers (other than
sendmail/delivermail) that support aliasing and that have seen
wide distribution. These are MH (from Rand & UCI) and MMDF
(from CSNET, etc.)
dgc
/* End of text from ndm20:net.mail */
Yeah, but not everyone has 4.2bsd on a vax. Anyone have a decent mailer for
a Masscomp? I didn't think so. Mine doesn't even know how to reply to a
message, much less aliasing and other fun stuff. It would be nice to have
one that generated headers, too (any kind, though RFC 822 would be nice).
I can think of some solutions to some of the problems mentioned here
recently, *IF* there were a widely available PD mailer that generated and
understood RFC 822. I've seen neat things go by, but they all assume that
I am running BSD with sendmail.
Terry Poot
Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers
(214)739-4741
Usenet: ...!{allegra|ihnp4}!convex!smu!ndm20!tp
CSNET: ndm20!tp@smu
ARPA: ndm20!tp%smu@csnet-relay.ARPAguy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris) (09/30/85)
> > There are at least a couple of other Unix mailers (other than > > sendmail/delivermail) that support aliasing and that have seen > > wide distribution. These are MH (from Rand & UCI) and MMDF > > (from CSNET, etc.) > > Yeah, but not everyone has 4.2bsd on a vax. Anyone have a decent mailer for > a Masscomp? I didn't think so. Mine doesn't even know how to reply to a > message, much less aliasing and other fun stuff. 1) The term "mailer" has two meanings. There are "user agents", which are the programs that read in mailboxes and permit you to say "send message", "read message", "reply to message", etc.. There are "deliverers", or whatever they are called, which take a message composed by a user using a "user agent" - or by a program independent of the "user agent" - and either delivers it or hands it to a program which can deliver it. The V7 UNIX mail program (sometimes called "/bin/mail") provided with V7, S3, S5, etc. is a "user agent". On some systems, it is also a "deliverer". Berkeley Mail, called "Mail", and the variant called "mailx" provided with System V Release 2, is also a "user agent" which acts as a "deliverer" on some systems. MH is also a "user agent"; I don't know if it ever acts as a "deliverer". "sendmail", "delivermail", and MMDF are "deliverers"; MMDF may provide a "user agent" as well. I'm somewhat surprised Masscomp doesn't provide Mail or "mailx". I suspect they currently provide one or the other in their latest releases. MH may run on non-4.2BSD systems; the chances are good that it runs on 4.2BSD systems which aren't VAXes (as pointed out before, "has 4.2BSD" is NOT equivalent to "is a VAX"; see the "Organization" field of this posting - unless, of course, you're running a news system which doesn't understand that field - for an example). MMDF may also run on non-4.2BSD systems, and probably runs on 4.2BSD systems which aren't VAXes. "sendmail" can also be coaxed to run on non-4.2BSD systems. It definitely runs on *our* non-VAX 4.2BSD systems. "/bin/mail" is a lousy user agent. If your system has nothing better, beat up your vendor. It is also an inadequate deliverer if you intend to mail to someone whose address is something other than "<uucp_neighbor>!<string>". Guy Harris