widdicom@ADS.COM (Greg Widdicombe) (02/01/91)
In article <12838@hubcap.clemson.edu> hubcap@hubcap.clemson.edu (System Janitor) writes: >Hi... > >I'm the local Unix system administrator here at Clemson's computer center. >Someone asked me the following question, and since I've never even >SEEN a Novell network :-) I thought I'd ask y'all: > > * I'm looking for a software package that will allow CCMAIL on a Novel network > * to send and receive mail from Internet. Know of any? > >Thanks for any help... > >-Mike Here's a five minute snapshot of the way cc:Mail handles this: Background: ADS is primarily a gov't contractor, with a computer base of about 90 Suns, 50 Macs and 30 PCs networked together. Typically, PC users read their mail using serial connections to Suns (using Dynacomm under Windows 3.0) or running Telnet if they had Excelan 205Ts. Like most PC users, we all thought UNIX mail was the pits so embarked on the cc:Mail / SMTP quest ... here's what happened. We purchased two cc:Mail products, LAN package for DOS and SMTP Link. The LAN package for DOS allows up to 25 LOCAL users (that is, people who use cc:Mail to read their mail) and an unlimited number of REMOTE users (people who we know about, but can only send and receive mail from). All the PC users were created as LOCAL users, everyone else in the company was entered as REMOTE users, with their "address" being a remote post office (in cc:Mail's terminology). The SMTP Link is the product that allows the mail to move back and forth from the UNIX to the Novell world. It uses ftp's TCP/IP s/w and in our case, we just shoved another WD8003E in an AT, and made it our standalone SMTP mail server. One card talked Novell, the other talked TCP/IP, I guess we could have used a packet driver but it was easier to go the two card route. This machine was assigned a host name and IP address. Let's assume it is "goanna". Everyone in the company had to be entered again into the SMTP Link package (just as well I don't work for Lockheed!). It wanted to know three things about each person: their "SMTP name" - which was usually their UNIX username, their "cc:Mail name" - which was their first and last name as entered in the LAN package s/w, and their "alias name" - which in our case was their full UNIX internet name. In my case, the SMTP name is "widdicom", the cc:Mail name is "Greg Widdicombe", and the alias name is "widdicom@ads.com". How it works: A cc:Mail user addresses mail by a "point and shoot" approach from the list of names. If the recipient is local, then cc:Mail just keeps the mail within the Novell network and notifies them that new stuff has been received. If the recipient is remote, then cc:Mail forwards their mail to the remote post office, where it waits to be delivered. Meanwhile, the SMTP Link machine sits there polling the remote post office every so often (in our case, 3 minutes) checking for any outgoing mail. If it finds some, it checks the cc:Mail addressee name against it's list, and if found, substitutes the alias name and sends it off to the UNIX world, where it is delivered. If the name isn't on the list, it might be for someone outside the company, then it passes on the mail with the original address intact. If I wanted to send something to patriot@scud.buster.com, then I would address it first to the remote post office in cc:Mail and it would ask me who I am sending to, I would then type the above internet name. SMTP link would say: Hmmm... don't know who patriot@scud.buster.com is, so I'll just pass this on with the address unchanged. Mail arriving from UNIX is sort of the reverse process. My /etc/passwd entry has been changed to deliver my mail to the machine "goanna" as mentioned above (the SMTP machine host name). Again, every three minutes the machine also polls to see if any mail has to be delivered. It sees something for "widdicom", looks that SMTP name up in the list and says "Oh, that's for Greg Widdicombe" and sends it on it's merry way. If the name is invalid, I guess it bounces. The SMTP Link s/w can be configured to leave the full UNIX mail headers on, or strip them off. When you want to reply to a sender, it just substitues that name (in most cases here, the internet address) and it all works perfectly. Newsgroups: Here's an interesting work around. We wanted to read newsgroups from our PCs, without logging in to a UNIX machine. We identified three corporate newsgroups that we all wanted to get in cc:Mail and set up some scripts that read the news spool for each newsgroup. The articles were sent to a unique "dummy" user on the SMTP link machine, the subject line was the same as the article and the sender was an alias for the newsgroup. When the mail arrived, the SMTP machine looked to see if the SMTP name existed, which it did, and substituted the cc:Mail name, which we set to A CC:MAIL BULLETIN BOARD! Bingo ... we read the bboard as if reading the newsgroup, and if we wanted to reply, it went back to the alias user and hence back to the UNIX newsgroup, so the rest of the company could read it too. OK ... so this was really the 30 minute review :-) Feel free to email me if you want more of the gory details! -- Greg Widdicombe | Advanced Decision Systems | _--_|\ * Up from Down Under * | 1500 Plymouth Street, | / *\ | Mountain View. CA 94043 | \_.--._/ widdicom@ads.com | (415) 960-7300 | v