From: richb@kronos.com (Rich Braun)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Creating an email backbone
Date: 22 Nov 92 19:54:06 GMT
Organization: Jupiter Technology Inc. / Waltham, MA
Disclaimer: This posting is a personal opinion and not that of Kronos Inc.

In setting up a demonstration of the power of Internet's email freeware at
my new employer, I've run into a few questions.

The requirement is basically to provide to a community of non-email users
a system for transparently and reliably delivering email between users of
Unix, DOS, and Macintosh systems over an Ethernet LAN (which runs NetWare,
TCP/IP, and Banyan currently.)  A secondary requirement is to link it
into Internet.

My proposed solution includes the following components:

	Sendmail 5.65c+IDA	Charon 4.0 gateway
	Pegasus mail		Pine 3.05
	C-news			NNTP 1.5.11
	Trumpet			XRN, TRN

Here's a piece of bad news for advocates of UNIX:  despite my own
background in UNIX, and lack thereof in DOS, I have to confess that getting
the DOS/Netware stuff up and running was a trivial task requiring only
a few hours' time.  The UNIX stuff has been taking more like a few _days_
to get up and running.  If UNIX is to become a widespread success, it
will have to become far more standardized, and it will have to become
far cheaper!  (Prices have been pushing three _thousand_ dollars lately,
for UNIX desktop software whose hardware costs less than that, and the
hardware comes bundled _with_ MS Windows.  The competition isn't even
close.)

Here the snags I'm currently working on:

	- I need an 'lmail' program which delivers to /usr/spool/mail
	  reliably on an NFS-shared environment.  Our old SV3.2 systems
	  deliver to /usr/mail and I can't find any freeware source to
	  replace it.  (The master SMTP server will forward any non-UNIX
	  mail to the Charon server.  All UNIX mail will be put into
	  the master spool directory, not forwarded to workstations which
	  are powered off and on occasionally.)
	- Pine seems not to have been ported to SV3.2, or any SV for
	  that matter.  Must I resort to Elm?  Has anyone developed
	  a port of Pine 3.05 yet?
	- The binmail which comes with sendmail 5.65c doesn't work on
	  SV3.2.  I tinkered with it enough to get it running a little,
	  but my port lacks robustness.  Is there a freeware version of
	  this for SV3.2?
	- C-news doesn't seem to install properly on this old UNIX; I've
	  fixed a few problems like the spacefor script and the missing
	  'compress' program, but there are some other peculiarities
	  which cause it to remain broken.  Is there a published set of
	  guidelines for bringing up C-news in this environment?
	- We have a number of Intel PC586 Ethernet boards, and neither
	  the crynwr packet drivers nor the makers of NetWare support
	  these.  Should these be scrapped?  (We only have SV3.2/SVr4 drivers.)
	- I can't find any X11r3-based email freeware to complement this
	  environment.  Have I not looked far enough?
	- Neither this environment nor most commercial environments support
	  any form of privacy enhancement.  If you have a company policy
	  memo on how email is administered, I'd like to see it (and how
	  it deals with potential privacy-invasion issues).  Email is only
	  as secure as the root/supervisor passwords.  (Not.)
	- Pegasus documentation lacks info on how to create 'System' entries
	  in its address book.  Short of ordering the manual and waiting
	  for it to arrive, can anyone provide tips on how to set up the
	  ultimate user-directory/alias table for this mailer?

I'm looking for a host for a new TV program called 'This Old UNIX'...any
takers?  ;-)  Alas, we live in a world populated by old UNIX systems, and
there's not enough money to replace them all.

So far, it's been one impressive demo, but it hasn't been without its
headaches.  Even given the headaches, I encourage anyone who is in a
similar position to give these packages a try.  They are light-years
ahead of most commercial offerings, which I've also taken a look at and/or
used (Pegasus gives cc:Mail a serious run for its money).  Most of them
come directly from the ftp.uu.net archives; all of them are periodically
discussed here.

-rich
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc