rapatel@topaz.rutgers.edu ( Rakesh Patel) (03/12/88)
I realize that questions from people about mail have pretty much been ignored so far, but I'll ask anyway. What is really needed (by me) is a mail system that allows talking to SMTP servers. Does anyone know if any of the present commercial mail systems for AppleTalk are going to add such a capability? Anyone else working on a solution? I realize the next question may not be appropriate for this group, but will ask since there may be people able to answer this as well. Is anyone considering a similar solution for PC networks? Basically, we need to be able to get Macintoshes, PC's and various machines using SMTP. Rakesh Patel.
kevins@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Kevin M. Schofield) (03/14/88)
In article <Mar.11.18.16.54.1988.26164@topaz.rutgers.edu> rapatel@topaz.rutgers.edu ( Rakesh Patel) writes: > >I realize that questions from people about mail have pretty much been >ignored so far, but I'll ask anyway. What is really needed (by me) is >a mail system that allows talking to SMTP servers. Does anyone know if >any of the present commercial mail systems for AppleTalk are going to >add such a capability? Anyone else working on a solution? >I realize the next question may not be appropriate for this group, but >will ask since there may be people able to answer this as well. Is >anyone considering a similar solution for PC networks? Basically, we >need to be able to get Macintoshes, PC's and various machines using >SMTP. This seems to be a up-and-coming issue, so I'd like to share what's going on here at Dartmouth. We have the entire campus connected in one huge distributed Appletalk network, including all the dorms, academic buildings, and administrative offices, and we want a Macintosh mail system which will support approx. 10,000 users in this environment. We are currently negotiating to contract out the development of such a system, but in the meantime we've developed a "throwaway" prototype, in order to give us a better understanding of the issues involved. The server for this prototype, as well as speaking a special protocol to Macintoshen running the front-end software, speaks SMTP over a reliable data stream protocol. This allows for "gatewaying" between the Mac mail system and the Internet. One of the big issues in getting a Mac mail server to speak SMTP is that one needs a reliable data stream protocol to sit under SMTP. And there are a lot of them out there. We're using one developed here at Dartmouth a few years back, because: 1. this is a "throwaway" prototype 2. it exists now, and works well 3. we have nice interfaces to it on host machines. But for a commercial product, there needs to be some agreement on which data stream protocol to use. SMTP is an easy protocol to implement (though getting it to agree with *NIX sendmail is kind of tricky), but there are other issues which need to be resolved first. -Kevin M. Schofield kevin.schofield@dartmouth.EDU {ihnp4 | decvax} !dartvax!kevin.schofield
khanna@JESSICA.STANFORD.EDU (Raman Khanna) (03/15/88)
> I realize that questions from people about mail have pretty much been > ignored so far, but I'll ask anyway. What is really needed (by me) is > a mail system that allows talking to SMTP servers. Does anyone know if > any of the present commercial mail systems for AppleTalk are going to > add such a capability? Anyone else working on a solution? At Stanford we just finished the mail package for Macs. We use MH-POP which is little different from the POP II specification. MH-POP server implementation for Unix is included in the standard MH distribution from University of Delaware. Incoming mail is retrieved from a Unix machine acting as mail server using Post Office Protocol (POP). Outgoing mail is sent using SMTP through a relay host. We have been able to provide the MH functionality using typical Mac interface. We are beta-testing it right now. Any university that licences SU-Mac/IP will get a copy when we send them the next release. For more info send email to: macip@jessica.stanford.edu. raman