[comp.mail.misc] help configuring smail to handle mail for non-users

gentry@kcdev.UUCP (Art Gentry) (02/14/90)

I am the administrator for an Internet site for the Hewlett Packard
International Users Group (Interex).  What I would like to do, is
have smail send any mail that it gets for a "user" without an ID on
this box, to 'lp' for automatic printing, as well as save a copy in
a 'default' mailbox for later possible replies, special processing,
etc.  Idealy, the sender would automaticly receive a message from 
this system, something to the effect of "Your message has been received
at Interex and will be forwarded to the proper department for response".

If smail finds a legitimate ID on the system, it would just deliver it
to the user's mailbox as normal, only if it failed to find an ID would
it send it to 'lp'.

Looking through the smail docs, it appears:
1) I can handle the problem if a default mailbox by defining 'default user'
   in the directors file.

2) I can handle the automatic message acknowledgement by creating a
   'forward file' in the 'default user' directory with something like
   default_user,
   "mailx -s 'message received....' \"$SENDER\" < $HOME/.answer"

3) I can handle the 'lp' protion by piping the message to 'tee' in
   the transports file, and having 'tee' send it to both 'mail' and
   'lp'.


The problem comes in, that:
1) I'm not sure if I'm even headed in the right direction with the
   above mentioned 3 suggestions

2) Even if my theories will work, the layout of the various config,
   transports, directors, etc. files is more than a little cryptic 
   to me, so I'm not sure how to configure them to accomplish this.

3) I am still basicly a smail neophyte :-}

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated by myself, the
office staff and 10,000+ Interex members.

If you will email replies/suggestions, I will summarize and post the
answers/solutions back to the net.

Many thanks

| R. Arthur Gentry   Interex HP Users Group    Kansas City, MO     64106 |
| Email: gentry@kcdev  -or-  gentry@genco  -or-  gentry@interex          |