awy@concurrent.co.uk (Alan Young) (06/21/88)
I have finally had time to collate all the replies I received to my request for information on TCP/IP packages supporting SMTP. What I really wanted to know was what systems provide a workable mail system for a PC user connected to a LAN which has TCP/IP hosts on it. The user-interface is important. We have been using BM (from the KA9Q package) for a while and wanted to know what else was available. I received about 15 replies, some of them excellent. Here is a summary of the responses. -------- FTP: provides a UI similar to Berkley Mail (SysV mailx) and is a pretty comprehensive implementation. To receive mail run up an SMTP server when the PC is otherwise not in use and get your local timesharing host to queue your mail. -------- KA9Q: again a Berkley Mail type of UI. The version we have is rather out of date and quite poor (you really have to be a programmer type to be prepared to use it), but I am told that the latest version is much improved. Of course it is free. I have been unable to pick up the latest version. Again, run up an SMTP server when there is nothing else going on, or use DOUBLEDOS and you can run them simultaneously. -------- IBM V1.1: From: "David R. Conrad" <davidc@terminus.umd.edu> : I wrote the PC/MH programs for IBM's V1.1 release, and so I suppose : you could say I have some experience with it. : : IBM's PC/MH is conceptually based on and is a subset of Rand's MH for : Unix systems. The commands included are : : inc incorporate mail : comp compose mail : repl reply to mail : send send a mail message : show show mail message : next show next mail message : prev show previous mail message : rmm remove mail message : folder general folder handling : rmf remove folder : refile file a message into a folder : scan scan a folder : : I attempted to make the PC/MH package 'look and feel' like Rand MH as : much as I could, but I was rather pressed for time, so a few things : fell through the cracks. If you want a nice, easy to use, menu based : mailer for the neophyte user, the PC/MH is probably not what you want. Inc uses POP to harvest the mail from a server host, and "send" may (optionally) use POP to check that the sender has a mailbox on the server before sending the mail. -------- Sun PC-NFS Lifeline mail: From: Michael Morse <mmorse@note.nsf.gov> : I have used SUN MicroSystem's PC-NFS Lifeline mail for almost all my : mail for about a month now. Aside from cost (which is prohibitively : high for many sites), I believe it is the best TCP/IP mail system : available today. : : User-Interface: Excellent. It is equal to typical high-quality PC : packages. The user-interface is based on Berkeley Mail, but has been : modified for the PC, with pull down menues and help screens. The : "one-character" command sequence of Mail is retained, which allows you : to go through mail very quickly. On an AT virtually all actions are : instantaneous (the exception is retrieving and sending mail). It can : *not* run in "hot-key" or "pop-up" mode, a slight disadvantage. : : It is fairly flexible, for example, you can specify your own editor, : if you prefer it to the built- in screen editor (which is acceptably : compentent). It supports both system-wide and user-specific : directories which can be searched easily. It includes a uuencode : feature to allow sending binary PC files on the Internet. It uses the : Mail scheme in which all messages in a folder are contained in a : single file. This provides excellent performance on a PC compared to : systems that keep each message in a separate file. : : The documentation is satisfactory, but is directed at users : knowledgeable in PC's and mail. It is not suitable for compleat : computer illiterates, although they could certainly use the software. : : Mail Model: LifeLine supports two models. The model I use is for all : incoming mail to be collected on a central "Post Office" host. The PC : periodically, or on command, checks with the host to see if there's : any mail. The "N" command is then used to download any mail to the PC : where it is stored on local disk (or a file-server virtual disk). An : option allows a copy to be retained on the central host for a period : of time for backup purposes. LifeLine uses the POP2 protocol. This : is not the same POP protocol distributed with the MH mail system. An : implementation of POP2 for Berkeley Unixes is provided with LifeLine, : but it is designed for sendmail systems. I have modified it to work : with MMDF. : : Outgoing mail in this model (called POP model in LifeLine) is sent to : the Post Office via SMTP for final delivery. This provides good : performance since the SMTP connection is easily made with the local : host, which can then queue the mail and do name server lookups and : retries, etc. There is a small problem with this approach in that : error messages may not be returned to the PC. Instead they will be : queued up for SMTP to the PC, and never delivered, since the PC does : not run an SMTP server. Also, the PC user must log on to the Post : Office machine to determine if mail has actually been delivered to its : final destination. : : The POP and SMTP connections are the slowest part of the package. It : can easily take several minutes to download the mail and 30 seconds to : send a piece of mail. However, LifeLine allows outgoing mail to be : queued up and sent at a time when the PC isn't needed for other : purposes. : LifeLine also supports an "SMTP Model" in which the PC runs a : background SMTP server. I haven't been able to get this to work. In : general, since PC's are frequently powered down, the POP model is : preferred. : : Cost: The major problem with LifeLine is that you have to have PC-NFS : to run it. You can get a site license for LifeLine for a couple of : thousand dollars, but to my knowledge SUN has not sold any site : licenses for PC-NFS. Even in fairly large quantities (>250), PC-NFS : costs about $200 *per PC*. However, PC-NFS is a high-quality package, : and has been updated and improved frequently since it was released. : So if you need the package to do more than mail (file and print : serving, for example) it might still be a good buy. : : Support: PC-NFS has been updated at least once a year, and each time : the functionality has been dramatically improved. I expect the same : with LifeLine. I am not too impressed with telephone support. There : are a few minor bugs in the product which I expect will be fixed in : the next release (outgoing mail does not have a "Date:" field in the : header, and return addresses are sometimes improperly created by the : "reply" command). Other reviews said much the same and Sun are coming to give me a demo on Friday. ------- I received nothing about the FUSION, WIN/TCP or MIT pcakages. I also received the following concerning non-TCP/IP mail systems for PCs, some of which can be gatewayed to RFC822 land. : From: Michael Morse <mmorse@note.nsf.gov> : : In your request you specifically asked for "TCP/IP Mail" packages. I : have reached the conclusion here that we are better served with a : non-TCP/IP LAN based package, with a gateway provided to the Internet. : The non-TCP/IP packages are more sophisticated in general, much less : expensive, and much easier to use and administer (no IP addresses to : assign!). Of course we already have a large installed base of 3COM 3+ : file servers, which makes a big difference. Your site may be : different.