[comp.sys.nsc.32k] Smail

des@musashi.wpd.sgi.com (Des Young) (04/19/91)

Hi,
  I have been getting around to installing a mailer. Smail has a good
reputation, could someone(s) in the know answer these questions please.

1. To run under Minix I only need uucp support, would smail version 2.x
   suffice ?

2. If I was to install smail on my Sun workstation, could it replace
   sendmail, or does it require sendmail to crack the headers (this
   was the case with 2.3 or earlier I believe).

3. From people in the don't-know, version 3.x seems to add large support
   for SMTP, is this the primary difference between 2.x and 3.x ??

4. Where do I obtain version 2.5 of smail, uunet only seems to have 2.3,
   and 3.19.

Thanks a lot if you can answer this,
Cheers, Des.

mea@mea.utu.fi (Matti Aarnio) (04/20/91)

> Hi,
>   I have been getting around to installing a mailer. Smail has a good
> reputation, could someone(s) in the know answer these questions please.
> 
> 1. To run under Minix I only need uucp support, would smail version 2.x
>    suffice ?
  Yes.

> 2. If I was to install smail on my Sun workstation, could it replace
>    sendmail, or does it require sendmail to crack the headers (this
>    was the case with 2.3 or earlier I believe).
  3.x can completely replace sendmail, but will work on UUCP as well.

> 3. From people in the don't-know, version 3.x seems to add large support
>    for SMTP, is this the primary difference between 2.x and 3.x ??
  It seems to be, altough it has support functions which are of formidable
size themselves too.  (Routing system for mail is reasonable in deed, not
the best, but reasonable.)

> 4. Where do I obtain version 2.5 of smail, uunet only seems to have 2.3,
>    and 3.19.

  Oh, there are many places.
	ux.acs.umn.edu:	/pub/smail/smail2.5*
	nic.funet.fi:	/pub/unix/mail/smail/smail2.5/*

( And of course I recommend UMN instead of FUNET server -- for non european
  sites anyway. )

> Thanks a lot if you can answer this,
> Cheers, Des.

	/Matti Aarnio <mea@nic.funet.fi> <mea@utu.fi>

kls@ditka.Chicago.COM (Karl Swartz) (04/21/91)

> 1. To run under Minix I only need uucp support, would smail version 2.x
>    suffice ?

Yes, smail 2.5 is just fine unless you need to do anything fancy.  It
essentially tacks on RFC 822 headers, does routing on non-local addrs,
and hands the mail off to either uux or a local mailer.

> 2. If I was to install smail on my Sun workstation, could it replace
>    sendmail, or does it require sendmail to crack the headers (this
>    was the case with 2.3 or earlier I believe).

I don't know about earlier versions but 2.5 can certainly understand
the headers.  However, there are many features it lacks which sendmail
does have, including SMTP support and mail to pipes.  I wouldn't use
it to replace sendmail on a Sun though I might use them together --
with smail 2.5 handling uucp and routing with sendmail handling all
the rest.

> 3. From people in the don't-know, version 3.x seems to add large support
>    for SMTP, is this the primary difference between 2.x and 3.x ??

The primary *similarity* between the two is the name.  That's it.  In
an overall sense 3.x is a superset of 2.5 functionality though with a
completely different implementation.  It's more reasonable to view 3.x
as the GNU version of sendmail, which happens to add support for uucp
routing.

> 4. Where do I obtain version 2.5 of smail, uunet only seems to have 2.3,
>    and 3.19.

I imagine you found 2.3 in the comp.sources.unix archives.  You should
find 2.5 in later volumes or possibly in the mail areas.  I'm sure
I've seen it on uunet.  If not, it's quite widely available -- decwrl
and osu-cis should both have it, amongst others.

BTW, you will need to fiddle with a few pieces of smail 2.5 to get it
working on Minix:

    Makefile
	$< doesn't work in the standard make, so the rule

	    $(OBJECTS):	defs.h
			cc $(CFLAGS) -c $<

	fails.  Either use GNU make or expand the rule into separate
	rules for each object file.

    misc.c
    	The include of <sys/utsname.h> should be wrapped within an
	#ifdef UNAME.

	Also, the libraries do not offer tzname[] which is used by the
	arpadate() function so I compiled in my own value.

    defs.h
	Make sure #define UNAME is commented out and #define HOSTNAME
	with your explicit hostname.

Happy mailing!

--
Karl Swartz		|INet	kls@ditka.chicago.com
1-408/223-1308		|UUCP	{uunet,decwrl}!daver!ditka!kls
			|Snail	1738 Deer Creek Ct., San Jose CA 95148
"It's psychosomatic.  You need a lobotomy.  I'll get a saw." (Calvin)