From: Digestifier To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Reply-To: Linux-Admin@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu Date: Tue, 31 Aug 93 12:41:25 EDT Subject: Linux-Admin Digest #29 Linux-Admin Digest #29, Volume #1 Tue, 31 Aug 93 12:41:25 EDT Contents: Linux Electronic Mail HOWTO (Vince Skahan) Linux UUCP HOWTO (Vince Skahan) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: vince@victrola.wa.com (Vince Skahan) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: Linux Electronic Mail HOWTO Date: 31 Aug 1993 15:51:49 GMT Reply-To: vince@victrola.wa.com (Vince Skahan) Archive-name: linux/howto/mail Last modified: 25 August 1993 The Linux Electronic Mail HOWTO by Vince Skahan, v1.0, Last Modified 25 August 1993 =========================================================================== This document describes the setup and care+feeding of Electronic Mail (e-mail) under Linux. You need to read this if you plan to communicate locally or to remote sites via electronic mail. You probably do *not* need to read this document if don't exchange electronic mail with other users on your system or with other sites. 0. Introduction The intent of this document is to answer some of the questions and comments that appear to meet the definition of 'frequently asked questions' about e-mail software under Linux. This document and the corresponding UUCP and News 'HOWTO' documents collectively supersede the UUCP-NEWS-MAIL-FAQ that has previously been posted to comp.os.linux.announce. 0.1 New versions of this document New versions of this document will be periodically posted to comp.os.linux.announce, comp.answers, and news.answers. They will also be added to the various anonymous ftp sites who archive such information including sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO. 0.2 Feedback I am interested in any feedback, positive or negative, regarding the content of this document via e-mail. Definitely contact me if you find errors or obvious omissions. I read, but do not necessarily respond to, all e-mail I receive. Requests for enhancements will be considered and acted upon based on that day's combination of available time, merit of the request, and daily blood pressure :-) Flames will quietly go to /dev/null so don't bother. Feedback concerning the actual format of the document should go to the HOWTO coordinator - Matt Welsh (mdw@sunsite.unc.edu). 0.3 Other sources of information USENET: ======= comp.mail.elm the ELM mail system. comp.mail.mh The Rand Message Handling system. comp.mail.mime Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. comp.mail.misc General discussions about computer mail. comp.mail.multi-media Multimedia Mail. comp.mail.mush The Mail User's Shell (MUSH). comp.mail.sendmail the BSD sendmail agent. comp.mail.uucp Mail in the uucp environment. Mailing Lists: ============== There is a smail-3.1 mailing list. To join (or get off) the list, send mail to smail3-users-request@cs.athabascau.ca make sure that you include the address at which you want to receive mail in the text of the message. To send a message to the list, send it to smail3-users@cs.athabascau.ca. Books: ====== The following is a non-inclusive set of books that will help... 'Managing UUCP and USENET' from O'Reilly and Associates is in my opinion the best book out there for figuring out the programs and protocols involved in being a USENET site. 'Unix Communications' from The Waite Group contains a nice description of all the pieces (and more) and how they fit together. 0.4 Where *NOT* to look for help There is nothing 'special' about configuring and running mail under Linux (any more). Accordingly, you almost certainly do *NOT* want to be posting generic mail-related questions to the comp.os.linux.* newsgroups. Unless your posting is truly Linux-specific (ie, "please tell me what routers are already compiled into the SLS1.03 version of smail3.1.28") you should be asking your questions in one of the newsgroups or mailing lists referenced above. 1.0 Hardware Requirements There are no specific hardware requirements for mail under Linux. You'll need some sort of 'transport' software to connect to remote systems, which means either tcp-ip or uucp. This could mean that you need a modem or ethernet card (depending on your setup). 2.0 Getting the software In general, I grab my sources from ftp.uu.net and the other fine archive sites on Internet. In addition, Linux-specific binary ports are found in the SLS distrbution and on the usual Linux anonymous ftp sites (sunsite.unc.edu and tsx-11.mit.edu in particular). The newspak-1.7.tar.z distribution contains config files and readme files related to building uucp, news, and mail software under Linux from the various freely-available sources. It can usually be found on sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/Linux/system/Mail. 3.0 Mail 'Transport Agents' This section contains information related to 'transport agents', which means the underlying software that connects your local system to remote systems. 3.1 Smail v3.1 Smail3.1 seems to be a de-facto standard transport agent for uucp-only sites and for some smtp sites. It compiles without patching from the sources. In addition, smail is provided in binary form in the SLS distribution of Linux. The newspak distribution contains config files for smail3.1.28 under Linux that you can use to start with. If you're building smail from sources, you need to have CASE_NO_NEWLINES=true in your os/linux file. For a uucp-only system that has a MX-record and that wants a domainized header (who goes through a smart-host for everything), these are the entire config files you'll need: replace 'subdomain.domain' with your domain name replace 'myhostname' with you un-domainized hostname replace 'my_uucp_neighbor' with the uucp name of your upstream site #-------- /usr/local/lib/smail/config ----------------- # # domains we belong to visible_domain=subdomain.domain:uucp # # who we're known as (fully-qualified-site-name) visible_name=myhostname.subdomain.domain # # who we go through smart_path=my_uucp_neighbor # #---------- /usr/local/lib/smail/paths -------------- # # we're a domainized site, make sure we accept mail to both names myhostname %s myhostname.subdomain.domain %s #------------------------------------------------------------------- To run smail as a smtp daemon, add the following to /etc/inetd.conf: smtp stream tcp nowait root /usr/bin/smtpd smtpd Outgoing mail gets sent automatically, when using elm. If your internet link is down when you send mail, then the mail sits in '/usr/spool/smail/input'. When the link next comes up, 'runq' is run which causes the mail to be sent. 3.2 Sendmail+IDA There is a nice binary distribution of sendmail5.65c+IDA on sunsite in pub/Linux/system/Mail that I highly recommend. I run a uucp-only site and use sendmail5.65c+IDA instead of smail3.1.28 due to the incredible ease of use. To install it... - you'll probably want to remove (or rename) all the files from smail (see the /install/installed directory if you are SLS) to be safe. - cd to / then 'gunzip -c sendmail5.65c+IDA.tpz | tar xvf -' - cd to /usr/local/src/sendmail5.65c+IDA/ida/cf and copy the example local.m4 file to 'yourhostname.m4'. Edit out the distributed hostname, aliases, and smarthost and put in the correct one for your site. The default file is for a uucp-only site who has domainized headers. Then 'make yourhostname.cf' and move the resulting file to /etc/sendmail.cf - if you are uucp-only, you do *NOT* need to create any of the tables mentioned in the README.linux file. Just edit the .m4 file, make sendmail.cf, and start testing it. - if you're uucp-only and you talk to sites in addition to your 'smart-host', you'll need to add uucpxtable entries for each (or mail to them will also go through the smart host) and run dbm against the revised uucpxtable. - if you change your .cf file, be sure to refreeze your config with /usr/lib/sendmail -bz to make the changes take effect. Another nice thing is that if you have mail.debug set and you run syslogd, your incoming and outgoing mail messages will get logged. See the /etc/syslog.conf file for details. 3.3 Other 'transport agents' The following also are known to run under Linux. Consult 'archie' for details regarding how to find them... smail2.5 - very simple UUCP-based smail sendmail8.5 - the newest non-IDA sendmail from Berkeley 4.0 Mail 'User Agents' This section contains information related to 'user agents', which means the software the user sees and uses. This software relies on the 'transport agents' mentioned above. 4.1 Elm Elm compiles, installs, and runs flawlessly under Linux. For more information, see the elm sources and installation instructions. The only thing to know is that Elm's Configure script incorrectly sets the 'ranlib' variable in config.sh. When Configure gives you the chance to edit config.sh before proceeding, please do so and set "ranlib='ranlib'" or the binaries will compile but not link. Elm and filter need to be mode 2755 (group mail) with /usr/spool/mail mode 775 and group mail. If you use a binary distribution like the one in SLS, you'll need to create a /usr/local/lib/elm/elm.rc file to override the compiled-in hostname and domain information: replace 'subdomain.domain' with your domain name replace 'myhostname' with you un-domainized hostname replace 'my_uucp_neighbor' with the uucp name of your upstream site #---------- /usr/local/lib/elm/elm.rc ------------------ # # this is the unqualified hostname hostname = myhostname # # this is the local domain hostdomain = subdomain.domain # # this is the fully qualified hostname hostfullname = myhostname.subdomain.domain # #-------------------------------------------------------- One thing you want to be aware of is that if you have Elm compiled to be MIME-able, you need metamail installed and in your path or Elm will not be able to read MIME mail you've received. 4.2 Mailx There is a fine binary implementation of mailx located on the various Linux archive sites. Make sure you grab version 5.3b or later since there are security problems in v5.3a. The only potential problem I'm aware of is that it seems to be compiled in a way that requires /usr/lib/smail rather than /usr/lib/sendmail as a transport agent. You probably need a link if you run sendmail on your system. I strongly recommend removing the old 'edmail' stuff from SLS and replacing it with mailx. This is rumored to be done already in the current SLS. 4.3 Other user agents The following also are known to run under Linux. Consult 'archie' for details regarding how to find them... Pine - from the Univ. of Washington Metamail - allows MIME support mh - yet another way to handle mail deliver - file/process mail based on rules procmail - file/process mail based on rules Majordomo - manages e-mail lists Mserv - provide files-by-mail 5.0 Acknowledgements The following people have helped in the assembly of the information (and experience) that helped make this document possible: Steve Robbins, Ian Kluft, Rich Braun, Ian Jackson, Syd Weinstein, Ralf Sauther, Martin White, Matt Welsh If I forgot anybody, my apologies... -- Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu ------------------------------ From: vince@victrola.wa.com (Vince Skahan) Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.announce,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: Linux UUCP HOWTO Date: 31 Aug 1993 15:52:03 GMT Reply-To: vince@victrola.wa.com (Vince Skahan) Archive-name: linux/howto/uucp Last modified: 22 August 1993 The Linux UUCP HOWTO by Vince Skahan, v0.1, Last Modified 22 August 1993 =========================================================================== This document describes the setup and care+feeding of UUCP under Linux. You need to read this if you plan to connect to remote sites via UUCP via a modem, via a direct-connection, or via Internet. You probably do *not* need to read this document if don't talk UUCP. 0. Introduction The intent of this document is to answer some of the questions and comments that appear to meet the definition of 'frequently asked questions' about UUCP software under Linux in general, and the version in the Linux SLS distribution in particular. This document and the corresponding Mail and News 'HOWTO' documents collectively supersede the UUCP-NEWS-MAIL-FAQ that has previously been posted to comp.os.linux.announce. 0.1 New versions of this document New versions of this document will be periodically posted to comp.os.linux.announce, comp.answers, and news.answers. They will also be added to the various anonymous ftp sites who archive such information including sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO. 0.2 Feedback I am interested in any feedback, positive or negative, regarding the content of this document via e-mail. Definitely contact me if you find errors or obvious omissions. I read, but do not necessarily respond to, all e-mail I receive. Requests for enhancements will be considered and acted upon based on that day's combination of available time, merit of the request, and daily blood pressure :-) Flames will quietly go to /dev/null so don't bother. Feedback concerning the actual format of the document should go to the HOWTO coordinator - Matt Welsh (mdw@sunsite.unc.edu). 0.3 Other sources of information USENET: ======= comp.mail.uucp can answer most of your UUCP questions Mailing Lists: ============== There is a Taylor UUCP mailing list. To join (or get off) the list, send mail to taylor-uucp-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu This request goes to a person, not to a program, so please make sure that you include the address at which you want to receive mail in the text of the message. To send a message to the list, send it to taylor-uucp@gnu.ai.mit.edu. Books: ====== HDB and V2 versions of UUCP are documented in about every vendor's documentation as well as in almost all *nix communications books. Taylor config files are currently only documented in the info files provided with the sources (and in the SLS distribution hopefully). To read them, you can grab the nice 'infosrc' program from the SLS 's' disks and compile it. The following is a non-inclusive set of books that will help... 'Managing UUCP and USENET' from O'Reilly and Associates is in my opinion the best book out there for figuring out the programs and protocols involved in being a USENET site. 'Unix Communications' from The Waite Group contains a nice description of all the pieces (and more) and how they fit together. 'Practical Unix Security' from O'Reilly and Associates has a nice discussion of how to secure UUCP in general. 0.4 Where *NOT* to look for help There is nothing 'special' about configuring and running UUCP under Linux (any more). Accordingly, you almost certainly do *NOT* want to be posting generic UUCP-related questions to the comp.os.linux.* newsgroups. Unless your posting is truly Linux-specific (ie, "please tell me what routers are already compiled into the SLS1.03 version of smail3.1.28") you should be asking your questions in comp.mail.uucp or on the Taylor UUCP mailing list as indicated above. 1.0 Hardware Requirements There are no specific hardware requirements for UUCP under Linux. Basically any Hayes-compatible modem works painlessly with UUCP. In most cases, you'll want the fastest modem you can afford. In general, you want to have a 16550 UART on your serial board or built into your modem to handle speeds of above 9600 baud. If you don't know what that last sentence means, please consult the comp.dcom.modems group or the various fine modem and serial communications FAQs and periodic postings on USENET. 2.0 Getting UUCP Taylor UUCP (current version 1.04) is available on prep.ai.mit.edu in source form and in the Linux SLS distribution in binary form. The newspak-1.7.tar.z distribution contains config files and readme files related to building uucp, news, and mail software under Linux from the various freely-available sources. It can usually be found on sunsite.unc.edu in the directory /pub/Linux/system/Mail. 3.0 Installing the Software [...much of this section is taken verbatim from the README file in the Taylor UUCP v1.04 sources - it's provided here so I can help you 'rtfm' instead of just telling you to do so...] Detailed compilation instructions are in uucp.texi in the sources. You can grab 'known good' conf.h and policy.h files for Linux from the newspak distribution referred to in the 'other sources of information' section above. In that case, you can probably go right to typing 'make'. To extract a gzip'd tar archive, I do the following: gunzip -c filename.tar.z | tar xvf - 3.1 Edit Makefile.in to set installation directories. Here, I set 'prefix' to "/usr" rather than the default of "/usr/local" 3.2 Run 'configure' Type ``sh configure''. The configure script will compile a number of test programs to see what is available on your system and will calculate many things. The configure script will create conf.h from conf.h.in and Makefile from Makefile.in. It will also create config.status, which is a shell script which actually creates the files. 3.2 Configure the future setup of the software Examine conf.h and Makefile to make sure they're right. - I took the defaults Edit policy.h for your local system. - set the type of lockfiles you want (HAVE_HDB_LOCKFILES) - set the type of config files you want built in (HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG, HAVE_V2_CONFIG, HAVE_HDB_CONFIG) - set the type of spool directory structure you want (SPOOLDIR_HDB) - set the type of locking you want (HAVE_HDB_LOGGING) - set the default search path for commands (I added /usr/local/bin to mine...) 3.3 Compile and install the software Type ``make''. Use ``uuchk'' to check configuration files. You can use ``uuconv'' to convert between configuration file formats. Type ``make install'' to install. 3.4 Set up the config files I'd recommend you start by taking the attached known-good config files for HDB mode and installing them. Make sure that the Permissions file indicates exactly where rmail and rnews are to be found if you put them anywhere other than in the path you specified in policy.h Make sure that your Devices files matches the actual location of your modem (cua1=COM2 in the examples) Edit the Systems file to set up the system(s) you talk to with their speed, phone number, username, and password. *PROTECT THIS FILE AGAINST WORLD READ* Set up the Permissions file and add a set of lines for each site you talk to. For security reasons, it's recommended to make sure they each have a separate account (if you allow dialin) and home directory so you can track things. 3.5 Give it a try /usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r 1 -x 9 -s remote_system_name The -x 9 will have maximum debugging information written to the /usr/spool/uucp/.Admin/audit.local file for help in initial setup. I normally run -x 4 here since that level logs details that help me with login problems. Obviously, this contains cleartext information from your Systems file (account/password) so protect it against world-read. 3.6 It doesn't work - now what ? In general, you can refer to the documentation mentioned above if things don't work. You can also refer to your more experienced UUCP neighbors for help. Usually, it's something like a typo anyway. 4.0 Frequently Asked Questions about Linux UUCP 4.1 Why is SLS uucp configured in HDB rather than 'Taylor' mode? Because IMHO it's the de-facto standard UUCP implementation at this time. There are thousands of sites with experienced admins and there are many places you can get incredibly good information concerning the HDB setup. The uucp-1.04 that's in SLS 1.02 and later has all three modes of config files built in. While I can't test it, I did 'rtfm' and Ian Taylor tells me that it should work. The search order for config files is Taylor...then V2 (L.sys)... then HDB. Use the uuconv utility in /usr/lib/uucp to convert config files from one mode to another. If you can't wait, grab the sources for uucp and specify HAVE_BNU_CONFIG, HAVE_V2_CONFIG *and* HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG in the policy.h file and type 'make'. The following workaround is ugly, but it does work, if you want to run Taylor configs from binaries that don't have it built in... [... From mbravo@tctube.spb.su (Michael E. Bravo) ...] - add '-I /usr/local/lib/uucp/config' to _every_ invocation of whatever program in uucp package 4.1 Why do I get 'timeout' on connections when I upgraded to uucp-1.04 ? [... from Ed Carp - erc@apple.com ...] If you use a 'Direct' device in the Devices file, there's now a 10 second timeout compiled in. Make the name of the Device anything other than 'Direct'. If you tweak the example /usr/lib/uucp files provided with SLS, you won't have problems with this one. [... from Greg Naber - greg@squally.halcyon.com ...] If you get chat script timeouts, you can tweak the sources by editing at line 323 in uuconf/syssub.c and changing the default timeouts from 10 seconds to something larger. 4.2 Why doesn't HDB anonymous uucp seem to work ? The SLS anonymous uucp only works in Taylor mode because it's compiled with HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG. If you want to do anon uucp in HDB mode, you'll have to recompile the sources with just HDB defined. Ian Taylor is considering which way to deal with this 'feature'... Also, Taylor in HDB mode seems to be sensitive to white space and blank lines. To be safe, make sure that there are no blank lines or trailing spaces in the Permissions file. Lastly, make sure that you have a file called remote.unknown in /usr/lib/uucp and that it's *NOT* executable. See the O'Reilly+Assoc book "Managing UUCP and USENET" for details regarding this file. 4.3 What does 'no matching ports found' mean ? In all probability, you are attempting to use a device (/usr/lib/uucp/Devices) that doesn't exist, or the device you've specified in the /usr/lib/uucp/Systems file doesn't match up with any valid devices in the Devices file. Following this are *sanitized* versions of my working Taylor 1.04 HDB config files that you can plug in and use... note the 'ACU' in the Systems ? That tells which 'port' to use in Devices see the 'scout' word in Systems ? That tells which dialer to use in Dialers. If you had a ACU port, but none that matched the specified dialer on the same line in Systems, you'll get that message. 4.4 What are known good config files for HDB mode ? The following are 'known-good' config files for Taylor 1.04 under Linux in HoneyDanBer mode. They work on kernels of 0.99-8 or later. All files should be in /usr/lib/uucp unless you've tweaked the sources to put the uucp library elsewhere. If you're running a kernel of 0.99-7 or earlier, change 'cua1' to 'ttyS1'. #------------- Devices ------------- # make sure the device (cua1 here) matches your system # cua1 = COM2 # ACU cua1 - 19200 scout ACU cua1 - 9600 tbfast ACU cua1 - 1200 tbslow ACU cua1 - 2400 tbmed #------------- dialers -------------- # note the setting of the Trailblazer registers 'on the fly' # 'scout' is a Digicom Scout Plus (Hayes-like) modem # scout =W-, "" ATM0DT\T CONNECT tbfast =W-, "" A\pA\pA\pT OK ATS50=255DT\T CONNECT\sFAST tbslow =W-, "" A\pA\pA\pT OK ATS50=2DT\T CONNECT\s1200 tbmed =W-, "" A\pA\pA\pT OK ATS50=3DT\T CONNECT\s2400 #-------------- Systems ------------- # this is a very generic entry that will work for most systems fredsys Any;1 ACU 19200 scout5555555 "" \r ogin:--ogin: uanon word: uanon #-------------------------------- Permissions ------------------------- # Taylor UUCP in HDB mode appears to be sensitive to blank lines. # Make sure all Permissions lines are real or commented out. # # this is a anonymous uucp entry # LOGNAME=nuucp MACHINE=OTHER \ READ=/usr/spool/uucp/nuucp \ WRITE=/usr/spool/uucp/nuucp \ SENDFILES=yes REQUEST=yes \ COMMANDS=/bin/rmail # # this is a normal setup for a remote system that talks to us # note the absolute path to rnews since this site puts things # in locations that aren't "standard" # LOGNAME=fredsys MACHINE=fredsys \ READ=/usr/spool/uucp/fredsys:/usr/spool/uucp/uucppublic:/files \ WRITE=/usr/spool/uucp/fredsys:/usr/spool/uucppublic \ SENDFILES=yes REQUEST=yes \ COMMANDS=/bin/rmail:/usr/local/lib/news/bin/rnews #---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.0 Acknowledgements The following people have helped in the assembly of the information (and experience) that helped make this document possible: Ed Carp, Steve Robbins, Ian Taylor, Greg Naber, Matt Welsh If I forgot anybody, my apologies... -- Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu ------------------------------ ** FOR YOUR REFERENCE ** The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is: Internet: Linux-Admin-Request@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU You can send mail to the entire list (and comp.os.linux.admin) via: Internet: Linux-Admin@NEWS-DIGESTS.MIT.EDU Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites: nic.funet.fi pub/OS/Linux tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux End of Linux-Admin Digest ******************************