[comp.mail.misc] looking for news<->mail gateway software

stevo@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Steve Groom) (08/31/90)

I'm looking for some software (or ways to make sendmail and C news)
that will do bidirectional relaying of articles between a newsgroup
and mailing list.  We have the mail->news direction set up using
recnews, what I really need is the reverse.

I know this stuff exists, I just can't find it anywhere.  Any pointers
would be welcomed.

Thanks.
Steve Groom, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
stevo@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov  {ames,usc}!elroy!stevo

brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (08/31/90)

In article <1990Aug31.002617.3791@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> stevo@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Steve Groom) writes:
>I'm looking for some software (or ways to make sendmail and C news)
>that will do bidirectional relaying of articles between a newsgroup
>and mailing list.  We have the mail->news direction set up using
>recnews, what I really need is the reverse.

Actually, the news to mail direction is the trivial direction.  You just
put a line in the sys file like:

dummy:group::headermailer mailing-list <%s

(chose flags appropriate to your plans.)

headermailer is a mailer that takes headers, like sendmail.


The hard part is mapping back.  Recnews does it too simply.  You must
rebuild the "References:" chain on outgoing articles.  To do this, you
need to look at "In-Reply-to" header lines in the mail, and then look up
that ID and build a reference chain from it, or failing that, look up the
subject in a database of subjects, dig out a message-id and build
a References chain from that.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473