mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) (11/19/90)
A new version of MailManager, a powerful electronic mail user
interface for the NeXT, is now available via anonymous FTP from
FTPHOST.CAC.WASHINGTON.EDU (IP address 128.95.112.1) on the "imap"
directory. This directory includes the binaries for MailManager and
EasyMail (a subset version) as well as imap.tar.Z, a source
distribution, and the Macintosh MacMS client.
MailManager allows you to have multiple mailboxes open simultaneously,
as well as read and compose multiple simultaneous messages. It also
supports more per-message status ("flagged" urgent, "answered",
"deleted", "seen", "recent", and user-assignable keywords), a separate
"expunge deleted messages" operation which can be deferred until a
different session from the message deletion, a powerful message
searching facility and support for file attachments.
MailManager supports mailboxes on the local machine in /usr/spool/mail
("Berkeley" or "mbox" format) and mail.txt ("Tenex" or "mtxt" format)
as well as remote mailboxes using the Interactive Mail Access Protocol
(IMAP2).
Inside the imap.tar.Z distribution are three new servers, all of which
run under inetd. These are: a complete rewrite of the IMAP server, a
POP2 server, and a POP3 server. All of these servers use the same
c-client library to access mailboxes as MailManager, ensuring complete
compatibility. Additionally, the POP2/POP3 servers are also IMAP
clients, providing a POP->IMAP gateway to allow you to leverage on
your existing POP-based PC clients yet still use IMAPware.
Users who have used earlier versions are urged to pick up and test the
current versions as soon as possible. Also, although I discourage the
use of NFS-mounted mailboxes in favor of IMAP, this new version will
support NFS-mounted mailboxes. The previous release tickled a
NeXT-specific NFS bug which caused an NFS client's file cache to miss
updates to the contents of the file, which could result in damaged
mail files. Since the problem is still in 2.0, it has been worked
around by rewriting the file logic to avoid the operation(s) which
invoke the bug. [Until NeXT fixes it, do *not* attempt shared
read/write access to NFS-mounted files, no matter what locking scheme
you have! Sordid details on request.]
_____ | ____ ___|___ /__ Mark ("Gaijin") Crispin "Gaijin! Gaijin!"
_|_|_ -|- || __|__ / / R90/6 pilot, DoD #0105 "Gaijin ha doko?"
|_|_|_| |\-++- |===| / / Atheist & Proud "Niichan ha gaijin."
--|-- /| |||| |___| /\ (206) 842-2385/543-5762 "Chigau. Omae ha gaijin."
/|\ | |/\| _______ / \ MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU "Iie, boku ha nihonjin."
/ | \ | |__| / \ / \ Lumchan ga suki ja!! "Souka. Yappari gaijin!"
Hee, dakedo UNIX nanka wo tsukatte, umaku ikanaku temo shiranai yo.