greg@gagme.chi.il.us (Gregory Gulik) (06/27/90)
I am using a 3B2 running System V 3.2, and using smail for E-mail. I noticed that /bin/mail doesn't call smail to process Internet type addresses, and it doesn't handle them itself. A lot of programs have /bin/mail hardcoded into them, which fails when a domain type address is specified. Is there anything I can do to /bin/mail, or is there a direct replacement for it that will work properly? -greg
mark@cbnews.att.com (Mark Horton) (06/30/90)
In article <511@gagme.chi.il.us> greg@gagme.chi.il.us (Gregory Gulik) writes: >I am using a 3B2 running System V 3.2, and using smail for E-mail. > >I noticed that /bin/mail doesn't call smail to process Internet >type addresses, and it doesn't handle them itself. > >A lot of programs have /bin/mail hardcoded into them, which fails >when a domain type address is specified. > >Is there anything I can do to /bin/mail, or is there a direct replacement >for it that will work properly? I gather you already have smail, which doesn't come with System V. smail 2.* comes with a replacement program for /bin/mail called svbinmail. The standard smail installation procedure moves /bin/mail to /bin/lmail and installs svbinmail as /bin/mail. This is much like plugging an answering machine in between your phone set and the line. lmail still does local delivery and serves as a user interface, while smail handles nonlocal UUCP delivery or calls sendmail. All svbinmail does is decide whether to call lmail or smail. I think smail 3.* can be installed in much the same way, although that's a very different program that happens to have the same name. smail 2.* was posted to comp.sources.unix long ago and can probably be found in your local archives or on UUNET. By the way, while it's true that many programs have /bin/mail hardcoded into them, this is not a good idea. /bin/rmail is probably a more stable target. Eventually IEEE 1003.2 systems will have a standard way to do this, which will probably be neither mail nor rmail. It's best to allow the program to be configured from a file so recompilation isn't necessary. For example, mailx lets you "set sendmail=/bin/mail" or whatever in the /usr/lib/mailx/mailx.rc file, ditto for Berkeley Mail. There are many back ends on different UNIX systems, you don't know what your program will wind up running on. (Beware of locking protocols, too, they are not all the same, and you need to lock the mailbox to write back to it.) Mark
lyndon@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Lyndon Nerenberg) (06/30/90)
In article <511@gagme.chi.il.us> greg@gagme.chi.il.us (Gregory Gulik) writes: >A lot of programs have /bin/mail hardcoded into them, which fails >when a domain type address is specified. A scan of our source tree shows that the only programs that reference "/bin/mail" explicitly are cron, mailx, and expreserve. I wouldn't call this "a lot." I can't speak for any third party software you might be running, though. Both cron and expreserve only have to notify local users, by the very nature of their operation. You can override "/bin/mail" in mailx by setting its sendmail variable. >Is there anything I can do to /bin/mail, or is there a direct replacement >for it that will work properly? I would recommend getting a copy of smail3.1. Among other things, it gives you a replacement for /bin/mail. It seems to me that smail2.5 also had a /bin/mail replacement (?) An alternative would be to port /bin/mail from BSD. I don't know if it contains any AT&T proprietary code or not. You might also consider linking /usr/bin/mail to /usr/bin/mailx, and putting /usr/bin in front of /bin in everyone's PATH ... -- Lyndon Nerenberg VE6BBM / Computing Services / Athabasca University {alberta,cbmvax,mips}!atha!lyndon || lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca Practice Safe Government Use Kingdoms
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (06/30/90)
In article <511@gagme.chi.il.us> greg@gagme.chi.il.us (Gregory Gulik) writes: >I am using a 3B2 running System V 3.2, and using smail for E-mail. >I noticed that /bin/mail doesn't call smail to process Internet >type addresses, and it doesn't handle them itself. The smail distribution should have included a tiny program called svbinmail that replaces /bin/mail (which you rename to something else). It just looks at the command line arguments and execs either smail or the old /bin/mail depending on whether you are sending or reading mail. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us