[comp.sources.wanted] Central mail server

system@asuvax.UUCP (Marc Lesure) (09/26/88)

We want to develop a mail system server which will receive and store mail
from remote systems.  Users will be able to send, read, query their mail
from any machine (regardless of OS) from a single point.  Since most users
here have 3-4 accounts on different machines, this will avoid having to 
check each system for mail.  So we don't reinvent the wheel, is such a
system already available?

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Marc Lesure / Arizona State University / Tempe, AZ
"Between the world of men and make-believe, I can be found..."
"False faces and meaningless chases, I travel alone..."
"And where do you go when you come to the end of your dream?"

UUCP:                ...!ncar!noao!asuvax!lesure  
Internet/CSNET/ARPA: lesure@asuvax.asu.edu

andrew@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Andrew Findlay) (09/29/88)

In article <363@asuvax.UUCP> system@asuvax.UUCP (Marc Lesure) writes:
>We want to develop a mail system server which will receive and store mail
>from remote systems.  Users will be able to send, read, query their mail
>from any machine (regardless of OS) from a single point.  Since most users
>here have 3-4 accounts on different machines, this will avoid having to 
>check each system for mail.  So we don't reinvent the wheel, is such a
>system already available?

Look at POP (Post Office Protocol), distributed as part of the MH Mail
Handler and also used in other things (such as Sun's Lifeline Mail for
PCs running PCNFS).

Before starting a major project you should also think about the implications
of X.400. This has the concept of a `message store' such as you propose.

At Brunel we have a partial solution to the problem you describe:
All networked machines use NFS so users only have a single home directory
however many machines they might use. We put the mailbox in the home
directory, so it is visible on all machines. Our case is perhaps simpler
than most, as we only have to worry about Unix machines and PCs.

Andrew

-- 

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|  From Andrew Findlay at Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK  |
|  Andrew.Findlay@brunel.ac.uk          phone: +44 895 74000 x2512  |
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page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (10/04/88)

[I added comp.protocols.nfs to the newsgroups line, followups
to comp.mail.misc]

[The problem is how to make a user's mailbox available on any machine
 they log into]

Andrew.Findlay@brunel.ac.uk (Andrew Findlay) wrote:
>We put the mailbox in the [NFS] home directory, so it is visible
>on all machines.

How do you deal with record locking over NFS?

We do something similar (we export /usr/spool/mail, a questionable
practice in itself) but tell everyone to read mail from one host so
their mail doesn't get clobbered.

I'd like to find a better way.

..Bob
-- 
Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept.  page@swan.ulowell.edu  ulowell!page

root@dutentb.UUCP (The System Administrator) (05/23/89)

The idea: we want to use one machine as the mail server in a cluster
of machines. All machines (HP, Sun, Apollo) will mount the mail spool area, 
and sendmail will be the server.
We want to hide the name of all the clients: we need sendmail config files
and may be some extra software.  The mail server has an uucp link with
the outside world.
We are looking for sendmail config files and/or some extra programs.
Who as done this already, and can help us with some data?

-- 
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