From: dan@innosoft.com (Daniel C. Newman)
Newsgroups: vmsnet.mail.pmdf
Subject: RE: Erroneous output from CONFIGURE.COM
Date: 3 Sep 92 11:05:36 GMT
Organization: The Internet
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> I recently installed PMDF V4.1-2 and used the CONFIGURE.COM procedure to
> generate the initial configuration.  I have found two problems with it so
> far, which other people might like to know about.
>
> 1) The local host information didn't work.  Here's part of CMDF.CNF:
>
> !
> ! Rewrite rules for the local host/VAXcluster
> !
> SERF                            $U@r.s.g.a
> SERF.r.s.g.a                    $U@r.s.g.a
> WKVA                            $U@r.s.g.a
> WKVA.r.s.g.a                    $U@r.s.g.a
> WKVB                            $U@r.s.g.a
> WKVB.r.s.g.a                    $U@r.s.g.a
> WKVC                            $U@r.s.g.a
> WKVC.r.s.g.a                    $U@r.s.g.a
> r.s.g.a                         $U@r.s.g.a
>
> l nox_env_to defragment charset7 us-ascii charset8 iso-8859-1
> r.s.g.a
>
> The "r.s.g.a" rule was not generated by CONFIGURE.COM: when I tried to
> send a message to myself on SERF (the node I had just installed PMDF on) it
> resulted in an infinite bounced message loop, which didn't go away until I
> added the "r.s.g.a" rewrite rule.

There is no problem with CONFIGURE, per se, but rather with how you answered
the questions.  The host name which is associated with the local (l) channel
is that given in response to the question "Official local host name".  No
rewrite rule is generated for this host: it is assumed to have been a host name
which was given earlier in the configuration query/response session.  Ned just
went ahead and added some additional DCL to CONFIGURE.COM to support what you
did.

> 2) I  included a few DECnet-mail hosts:
>
> !
> ! Rewrite rules for the D (MAIL-11) channel
> !
> paper                                   $U@paper
> pencil                                  $U@pencil
> ruler                                   $U@ruler
>
> d 733 nox_env_to defragment linelength 255 charset7 us-ascii charset8 iso-8859-1
> DECNET-MAIL
> paper                                   paper
> pencil                                  pencil
> ruler                                   ruler
>
> But when I tried to send a message to a user on PAPER, the message was
> encoded using BASE64 and was not readable:

This was a bug in the interaction between linelength and charset7 which was
fixed early on in 4.1 but your 4.1-2 tape pre-dates that fix.  The mail you
sent must have had some long lines (> 255 characters) and PMDF went ahead and
wrapped the lines but also encoded them when that wasn't necessary.

Fortunately, there is a simple work around: remove the "charset7 us-ascii" from
your d and l channels.  It's superfluous anyhow since charset7 us-ascii is the
default.  Removing it will, however, remedy the problem.

Dan