rsm@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu (Robert Maier) (03/06/89)
It would be nice if GNU Emacs, when used as a mail user agent, would
send mail by talking SMTP to a mail server instead of just invoking a
local `sendmail'.
Has anyone succeeded in making Emacs talk SMTP? Coding in Elisp beats
writing a sendmail.cf any day...
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Robert S. Maier
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UUCP: ..{allegra,cmcl2,hao!noao}!arizona!amethyst!rsmlear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) (03/06/89)
No offense, but doesn't emacs do enough? To implement a mailer you really must have some sort of queuing structure, because nothing ever goes right with mail (or so it should be presumed). And then the queue must be run, and cleaned, etc. If you like, I can send you a sendmail.cf tutorial that was posted to the net some years ago. Eliot -- Eliot Lear [lear@net.bio.net]
bob@tinman.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) (03/06/89)
Similar things have been suggested wrt having GNUS whisper NNTP in the ears of more than one NNTP server at posting time. The objective in this case was more immediate dispersal of a news article, rather than ease of configuration. I think both schemes of using Emacs as a message delivery agent constitute layering violations. Both solve problems in ways that would be unique to users of GNU Emacs, but don't offer any benefits to users of other interfaces (mh, elm, rn, gnews) to the same transport. However, this would be a good evangelistic tool... :-)
pinkas@hobbit.intel.com (Israel Pinkas ~) (03/07/89)
In article <RSM.89Mar5162359@onyx.ma.arizona.edu> rsm@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu (Robert Maier) writes: > It would be nice if GNU Emacs, when used as a mail user agent, would > send mail by talking SMTP to a mail server instead of just invoking a > local `sendmail'. > > Has anyone succeeded in making Emacs talk SMTP? Coding in Elisp beats > writing a sendmail.cf any day... I have to disagree. There are a number of problems with this. 1) GNU Emacs runs on many machines that don't have SMTP, or that don't use SMTP for mail delivery. There are sites that use POP, uucp, and other mailer configurations. 2) You would still have to write the sendmail.cf. Look at MH (the Rand Mailer). The default configuration is to connect to the SMTP server. (Normally this is localhost, but you might want all mail to be delivered to one machine.) Since the SMTP server is usually sendmail, you wind up writing the sendmail.cf. 3) Most mailers deliver mail by invoking sendmail with flags. There may be a reason for a site to replace sendmail with a program that does something site-specific. For example, sites that use NFS without lockd might want to force all mail to the server machine. It would not be difficult to write an SMTP package in Elisp (see the NNTP package in GNUS). I just think that it is unnecessary. Besides, you could always use the MH-E package that is supplied. This does almost exactly what you want. -Israel -- -------------------------------------- Disclaimer: The above are my personal opinions, and in no way represent the opinions of Intel Corporation. In no way should the above be taken to be a statement of Intel. UUCP: {amdcad,decwrl,hplabs,oliveb,pur-ee,qantel}!intelca!mipos3!cadev4!pinkas ARPA: pinkas%cadev4.intel.com@relay.cs.net CSNET: pinkas@cadev4.intel.com
cudcv@warwick.ac.uk (Rob McMahon) (03/18/89)
In article <PINKAS.89Mar6124251@hobbit.intel.com> pinkas@hobbit.intel.com (Israel Pinkas ~) writes: |In article <RSM.89Mar5162359@onyx.ma.arizona.edu> rsm@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu (Robert Maier) writes: | |> It would be nice if GNU Emacs, when used as a mail user agent, would send |> mail by talking SMTP to a mail server instead of just invoking a local |> `sendmail'. |> |> Has anyone succeeded in making Emacs talk SMTP? Coding in Elisp beats |> writing a sendmail.cf any day... | |I have to disagree. There are a number of problems with this. | |1) GNU Emacs runs on many machines that don't have SMTP |2) You would still have to write the sendmail.cf. |3) Most mailers deliver mail by invoking sendmail with flags It would still be useful if gnumacs could talk SMTP to the local sendmail daemon, rather than starting up a new copy of sendmail, even if it did no routing decisions. Once the sendmail.cf files is written it's done, and there's no point in writing another version in Elisp, but at least this would save the overhead of starting a new sendmail process for each mail item. Rob -- UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!warwick!cudcv PHONE: +44 203 523037 JANET: cudcv@uk.ac.warwick ARPA: cudcv@warwick.ac.uk Rob McMahon, Computing Services, Warwick University, Coventry CV4 7AL, England
rlk@think.com (Robert Krawitz) (03/20/89)
In article <121@titania.warwick.ac.uk>, cudcv@warwick (Rob McMahon) writes:
]It would still be useful if gnumacs could talk SMTP to the local sendmail
]daemon, rather than starting up a new copy of sendmail, even if it did no
]routing decisions.
When you connect to sendmail via smtp over the network, the master
sendmail daemon forks a new copy. The process creation still takes
place.
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