[comp.mail.misc] UUCP and SMTP Mail Routing

eddjp@althea.UUCP (Dewey Paciaffi) (09/09/89)

Hi. I've been having a little problem with my mail lately, and was hoping
someone could come to my rescue.

I run elm and smail on a Xenix 386. I am connected to some local PCs that run
uupc-mail. The local and uucp mail to the PCs run fine. Last week I made
a TCP-IP connection to a local machine. Mail moves well over that connection
using the vendor supplied SMTP package. 

My problem is that I would like to have elm/smail hand mail over to the
SMTP package when appropriate. Currently any bang or domain address mail
goes to uux, when I use elm.

Can I make smail cognizant of the fact that I have a TCP host connected
and route mail to it? Is this something that requires sendmail, and if
so, does anyone know where I could locate a copy of it?

I would appreciate any insight that anyone could offer. I have crossposted
this to a few groups, and so would prefer email replies where possible.

Thanks very much,
Dewey Paciaffi			eddjp@althea.UUCP

chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US (Chip Rosenthal) (09/10/89)

In article <301@althea.UUCP> eddjp@althea.UUCP (Dewey Paciaffi) writes:
>Can I make smail cognizant of the fact that I have a TCP host connected
>and route mail to it? Is this something that requires sendmail, and if
>so, does anyone know where I could locate a copy of it?

You don't mention the vendor, but I faced this problem when I tried to
use Excelan's SMTP.  At the time, the solution required two parts, and
the second part hinged upon Chip Salzenberg's deliver program.

The first part is to use the little-known but documented feature of
pathalias to generate something besides "bang-paths".  For example,
if you just say:

	mysite	othersite(COST)

then pathalias will say:

	othersite!%s

However, if you say:

	mysite	%othersite(COST)

then pathalias will say:

	%s%%othersite	(the double-% sprintf's down to user%othersite)

To smail, this is a local address, and therefore invokes the local delivery
agent rather than uux.  The second step is to use "deliver" rather than
"execmail" as the local delivery agent.  You then may make an entry in
your system delivery control file which recognizes:

	*%othersite

and passes it off to the SMTP client for delivery.

This solution works, but is a bit ugly because of all the pieces you need
to maintain.  "Deliver" is available from your friendly neighborhood
comp.sources.unix archives, with a newer version in the queue for release
(if I put on my optimist's hat).
-- 
Chip Rosenthal / chip@vector.Dallas.TX.US / Dallas Semiconductor / 214-450-5337
Someday the whole country will be one big "Metroplex" - Zippy's friend Griffy