rs@mirror.UUCP (03/26/87)
People often ask me to recommend a "smart" mailer for them to use. I
don't like making such recommendations because I'm not equally familiar
with all the choices, and because, as moderator of mod.sources, I don't
want to "push" one choice over the others.
Some time ago I asked the maintainers of the more popular mail programs to
write an "advertisement" for me that I could hand out as answers to
people. This message is the somewhat-delayed result of the first round of
replies. The software described below is all available through the
mod.sources archives. If you have specific questions about a particular
package, please do one of two things: get the source from an archive site
and figure it out yourself; or ask the author.
I will post revisions to this article as I receive new information. If
you have a mail package, or know of one, that I've omitted, please tell
me about it. If you have ideas on how this article could be made more
useful (do people really need an intro on what domains are?), please let
me know.
I'll close out this introduction with a quote from Mark Horton:
In general, it doesn't matter which package somebody runs; what
matters is that it conform to RFC 976 and 822, and meet local needs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SMAIL
From: mark@cbpavo.cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Horton)
Now-Maintained-by: lda@clyde.att.com (Larry Auton)
Smail (simple mail) was designed primarily to be simple; to be easy to add
to an existing site. It hooks in as a back end to sendmail, although it
does not have to have sendmail to run. As distributed, it supports simple
configurations: all UUCP links, or UUCP links plus a small local
TCP/IP/SMTP network.
Smail does offer full support for arbitrary domains and subdomains to any
depth. It arranges that mail sent through the system to another UUCP host
will not break From: headers, and will be passed directly to uux instead
of going through sendmail, resulting in less load on the machine.
Smail runs on three sorts of systems: Berkeley systems with sendmail,
System V systems with sendmail, and System V systems without sendmail. It
will generate the required headers for non-sendmail sites, and also
handles aliases and ".forward" files.
We expressly do NOT handle configurations involving CSNET, BITNET,
gateways between UUCP and the ARPA Internet, or X.400. However, it might
be possible to use smail as part of a general gateway between UUCP and
some other network.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SENDMAIL CONFIGURATION PACKAGE UK-1.4
From: Jim Crammond <jim@cs.hw.ac.uk>
This package provides you with the tools to generate a fully domain based
sendmail configuration file from "human readable" domain and channel tables
in a format similar to that used by MMDF.
In addition there are a number of enhanced sendmail interface programs plus
some useful utilities which may interest you whether or not you use the rest
of the package.
It works with vanilla BSD4.2 & BSD4.3 sendmail's; supports ethernet, uucp,
janet, csnet and bitnet mail interfaces (janet is UK specific).
It allows host hiding behind a general domain name and where several machines
have an identical view of the network they can share the same configuration
file (very useful for Sun file server type setup's).
It handles RFC822 addresses, Percent style and uucp addresses. Within the
restrictions of vanilla sendmail, it conforms to RFC822, RFC976 and Greybook
(for Janet).
I think it is accurate to say it is the most widely used package in the UK.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
UUMAIL
From: sob@soma.BCM.TMC.EDU (Stan Barber)
Uumail comes with an rmail front end and does sendmail-like forwards.
Uumail is not a user-agent. It is intended to be used as a "back-end" to
take the mail from user-agents and correctly route it to its destination.
Other examples of similiar programs include sendmail, delivermail, and
MMDF.
Features of uumail include:
o RFC 976 Compliant (UUCP Mail Interface Format Standard)
o uses pathalias(1) generated database in either text or dbm(3) format
o MH-style aliasing support
o sendmail-like .forward processing
o can pipe mail output into other programs (e.g. uurec)
o can be used under SYSTEM III, SYSTEM V or BSD
o rn-like Configuration program for easy installation
o returns undeliverable mail
o usable as a mailer with sendmail(8)
o does not require Unix sources to install
o dynamically determines uucp neighbors without modification
of the pathalias database
o functions as uupath(1) to return paths from pathalias(1) database
o logging of traffic supported
o supports 4.3 BSD UUCP graded transactions
No other programs are required to use uumail. Pathalias(1) is useful for
generating a full database, but a full database is not required to make
uumail useful.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELM
[ This is really "user agent" but it can subsume mailer functions as a
compile-time option, or happily live with any of the mailers mentioned
here. --r$ ]
From: Dave Taylor <taylor%hpldat@hplabs.HP.COM>
The Elm mail system is a replacement mailer for all Unix systems, and
contains all the functionality of Berkeley Mail, /bin/mail, nmail, uumail,
and a number of other popular packages in a unified and consistent
format. The program also has a considerable amount of user testing behind
it and is constantly being added to. Current features that it supports
that no other mailers do - AT&T Forms Mode, for those of you who are part
of the AT&T Mail system and don't want to use PMX/TERM, in-line encryption
and decryption of mail using a non-DES algorithm, aliases that expand to
the NAME of the user as well as the address, and support for both the
pathalias database and the `domains' rewrite rule database.
The main selling point of Elm, however, is that it is EASY to use. Many
people have simply sat down and started reading their mail and writing
messages to their friends. The Elm system allows you to concentrate on
the MESSAGE not the MAILER!
--
--
Rich $alz "Drug tests p**s me off"
Mirror Systems, Cambridge Massachusetts rs@mirror.TMC.COM
{adelie, mit-eddie, ihnp4, harvard!wjh12, cca, cbosgd, seismo}!mirror!rs