[news.sysadmin] Questions about smail.

jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) (02/23/90)

I just started running smail and I was wondering about a few things.
root keeps getting messages from adm about smail.  They are normally
empty.  How can I stop these?  The next one may become a problem.
smail seems to put my address as "jessea@dynasys.UUCP".  There are a
lot of mailers that are either not set up to handle internet
addressing or don't have the capability.  Is there any way I can have
give uucp addressing?  Ex:  dynasys!jessea   or even the full path
name?  Thanx in advance.


-- 
Jesse W. Asher - Dynasys - (901)382-1705      
6196-1 Macon Rd., Suite 200, Memphis, TN 38134  
UUCP: {uunet,fedeva,rayo}!dynasys!jessea

kabra437@pallas.athenanet.com (Ken Abrams) (02/25/90)

In article <58@dynasys.UUCP> jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) writes:
>I just started running smail and I was wondering about a few things.
>root keeps getting messages from adm about smail.  They are normally
>empty.  How can I stop these?  The next one may become a problem.
>smail seems to put my address as "jessea@dynasys.UUCP".  There are a
>lot of mailers that are either not set up to handle internet
>addressing or don't have the capability.  Is there any way I can have
>give uucp addressing?  Ex:  dynasys!jessea   or even the full path
>name?  Thanx in advance.
>
I have been dropping a few posts here and there trying to get a definitive
answer to this and other related "net" addressing problems for the last
month or so.  Guess I have been leaving them in the wrong areas because
I haven't gotten any good information yet.  My SYSADM has managed to fix
smail so that it puts a proper return address in our mail messages
(sorry, I don't know exactly what he did).  As you can see by the header
of this message, we have not been able to apply a similar fix to rn as it
still shows our addresses in the xxx@yyy.UUCP format.
I suspect that this is a BIG problem for lots of folks on the net since
it also causes me trouble in sending mail replies to addresses in this
format (they don't make it out of my machine).  If a poster doesn't leave
a full path address, it is sometimes impossible to reply via mail.
I would like to see a periodic (monthly) post similar to those in newuser
explaining this address mess but so far haven't been able to locate
anyone able (or willing) to do it.

-- 
========================================================
Ken Abrams                     uunet!pallas!kabra437
Illinois Bell                  kabra437@athenanet.com
Springfield                    (voice) 217-753-7965

gary@dgcad.SV.DG.COM (Gary Bridgewater) (02/27/90)

In article <298@pallas.athenanet.com> kabra437@pallas.UUCP (Ken Abrams) writes:
>In article <58@dynasys.UUCP> jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) writes:
>>....  Is there any way I can have [rn]
>>give uucp addressing?  Ex:  dynasys!jessea   or even the full path
>>name?  Thanx in advance.
> ...
>I would like to see a periodic (monthly) post similar to those in newuser
>explaining this address mess but so far haven't been able to locate
>anyone able (or willing) to do it.

To fix reply addresses you must grep the news sources and find the hard
coded occurance of the .UUCP. You must then stare at the code for a good
long while and then carefully edit it to hard code in something else. See
what happens, re-edit, loop until correct or acceptable.
I have seen posting that explain this and even show the code. However,
doing it this way gives one a sense of accomplishment and teaches a
method for problem solving.

Being a news admin, I have found, is very much an "Aha!" experience. I have
had the usual news admin training (previous news admin wisked off to Oz by
tornado, etc. with no notice) and my news stopped being there.
So I jumped in and started breaking it in BIG ways. Eventually, a few
batches stayed around long enough to get refused due to broken active file
and another Star* was born. :-}

Anyway - monthly postings of commmon news problems may not be all that useful
since the audience for them either 1) doesn't know they are in the audience
yet or 2) already knows enough to fix it anyway. As a B news admin and as
a watcher of C News' birth it occurs to me that every single system running
news is unique, to a greater or lesser degree, and will need specific care
and feeding (oops) to function. So, you have to hack something and you
might as well learn to do it on a small scale. Getting .UUCP fixed is
a good start.

None of this applies to backbones and/or other heavily manned sites. I speak
to the sites with 1-100 users and a news admin whose Real Job is something
other than administering that goofy system in the corner.

I could be wrong.

(* Capricorn - the Goat)
-- 
Gary Bridgewater, Data General Corporation, Sunnyvale California
gary@sv.dg.com or {amdahl,aeras,amdcad}!dgcad!gary
The impossible we understand right away - the obvious takes a little longer.