* Re: How to get information about your system and network for setting up gnus email [not found] <y44r8fugvs1.fsf@nestle.ai.mit.edu> @ 2002-09-16 10:19 ` Kai Großjohann [not found] ` <wtnbs6yi94z.fsf@licia.dtek.chalmers.se> 1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2002-09-16 10:19 UTC (permalink / raw) Don Saklad <dsaklad@nestle.ai.mit.edu> writes: > If you're a systems or network type there are files you look at on > your system and network or commands you run that give you information > about your systems and networks. The information you need is not among them. Even systems and network types have to know, they cannot look it up in some file. kai -- ~/.signature is: umop 3p!sdn (Frank Nobis) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
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* Re: How to get information about your system and network for setting up gnus email [not found] ` <wtnbs6yi94z.fsf@licia.dtek.chalmers.se> @ 2002-09-16 12:08 ` Don Saklad 2002-09-16 12:35 ` Adam Sjøgren 0 siblings, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread From: Don Saklad @ 2002-09-16 12:08 UTC (permalink / raw) thank you jonas steverud ! On the other hand a new systems or network type would probably figure out the information observing a system or network. The question is whether there're files or commands that could theoretically give the information. I've seen people with expertise do this to their delight ! It just doesn't make any sense that the information isn't available except by oral accounts. The question is what are some of those files or commands?.... cheers! and kind regards, oo__ don Warner saklad http://my.gnus.org/Members/dsaklad ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
* Re: How to get information about your system and network for setting up gnus email 2002-09-16 12:08 ` Don Saklad @ 2002-09-16 12:35 ` Adam Sjøgren [not found] ` <y44y9a13dhw.fsf@nestle.ai.mit.edu> 0 siblings, 1 reply; 5+ messages in thread From: Adam Sjøgren @ 2002-09-16 12:35 UTC (permalink / raw) On 16 Sep 2002 08:08:43 -0400, Don Saklad wrote: > I've seen people with expertise do this to their delight ! It just > doesn't make any sense that the information isn't available except > by oral accounts. The people that have impressed you so much by doing this have undoubtly been guessing. The reason that they have been successful is probably that there are de-facto standards for what mailservers are called. Usually people call them "mail.[domain]", "smtp.[domain", "pop.[domain]" or similar. Guessing, for instance, that pop.ai.mit.edu is a mailserver serving mail via POP for ai.mit.edu is not a far out guess, because pop.ai.mit.edu exists. Same thing goes for news.ai.mit.edu and mail.ai.mit.edu. Incidently those three guesses might be appropriate for your specific setup at ai.mit.edu. But I must stress: These are *guesses*. The only authoritative way to get the *correct* answer is to get the information for the people responsible for the news and mailservers you need to use. > The question is what are some of those files or commands?.... If you want to know whether your guess on a hostname is a name associated with a machine, you can look it up in the Domain Name System, DNS. On most unix machines you can use the command "host" to do this. For instance: $ host mail.ai.mit.edu mail.ai.mit.edu CNAME life.ai.mit.edu life.ai.mit.edu A 128.52.32.80 $ tells you that there is actually a machine that is supposed to respond to the name "mail.ai.mit.edu". If, on the other hand, you try to look up a non-existing machine with the "host" command, you get something similar to this: $ host donsbox.ai.mit.edu donsbox.ai.mit.edu A record currently not present $ That way one can educate ones guesses. But they're still nothing more than guesses. Best regards, -- "Så har den første snøen falt Adam Sjøgren men det er ikkje derfor det er kaldt" asjo@koldfront.dk ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
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* Re: How to get information about your system and network for setting up gnus email [not found] ` <y44y9a13dhw.fsf@nestle.ai.mit.edu> @ 2002-09-17 0:04 ` RL [not found] ` <8765x5zmrn.fsf@virgil.koldfront.dk> 1 sibling, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread From: RL @ 2002-09-17 0:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Don Saklad <dsaklad@nestle.ai.mit.edu> writes: > Thank you Adam Sjo/gren ! > > Then the question becomes > 1. how might you guess at the system and network information needed > b. Your ISP's newsserver > c. The User's Mailserver Type > f. The address of your mailserver internet provider or hostname This isnt really a gnus problem. If you use *any* mail or news client you ahve to know these settings: even _Outlook Express_ requires you to set these yourself. People keep telling you that there is no commands to do what you want. you just have to know. What email prog do you use at the moment? why not look at the values you use in that program? > 2. And how might you confirm the guesses?... > Configure a mail client (eg gnus) with your guesses. run the mail client see if you can read news/mail if not, try a different guess ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
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* Re: How to get informational details about your system and network for setting up gnus email [not found] ` <y44admhk3ry.fsf@nestle.ai.mit.edu> @ 2002-09-17 12:20 ` Josh Huber 0 siblings, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread From: Josh Huber @ 2002-09-17 12:20 UTC (permalink / raw) Don Saklad <dsaklad@nestle.ai.mit.edu> writes: > c. commands You can you your standard unix tools such as: a. ping b. host or nslookup c. telnet to guess and observe what hosts/services exist. > b. files Not very appropriate, unless you are looking at the configuration files from an already configured machine, and duplicating that configuration to another machine. (which is probably likely, since most people will not be using Gnus as their first email/news reader) > a. observation > d. ruling out A good guess with smtp servers (as has already been stated) is either "mail" or "smtp". Let's take ai.mit.edu as the example domain. $ host mail.ai.mit.edu mail.ai.mit.edu is an alias for life.ai.mit.edu. life.ai.mit.edu has address 128.52.32.80 Okay, the host exists, let's see if it is running an SMTP service: $ telnet mail.ai.mit.edu smtp Trying 128.52.32.80... Connected to ai.mit.edu. Escape character is '^]'. 220-life.ai.mit.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.12.2/8.12.2/BASENAME(ai.master.life-8.12.2.mc,.mc):RCS_REVISION(evision:1.23 220-Tue, 17 Sep 2002 08:06:13 -0400 (EDT) 220 This is MIT. Collect or third party calls not accepted. Looks good. Based on that information, I would use mail.ai.mit.edu as the outgoing (SMTP) server. Next, we should try for either a pop or imap server for the actual reading/retrieving of our mail. IMAP tends to be better, and lets the users store their mail on the server. (which has the nice side-effect of allowing people to use different email clients with the same mailboxes) So, we'll first look for IMAP. Sometimes these services run on the "mail" host as well, so we'll check for all three: mail, imap and pop: $ host imap.ai.mit.edu Host imap.ai.mit.edu not found: 3(NXDOMAIN) ...no host named imap.at.mit.edu... $ host pop.ai.mit.edu pop.ai.mit.edu is an alias for life.ai.mit.edu. life.ai.mit.edu has address 128.52.32.80 Ah, but there is a pop.ai.mit.edu. Also note that both mail and imap are actually aliases for the same machine (life.ai.mit.edu). Now, lets check for running services on life: $ telnet life.ai.mit.edu imap Trying 128.52.32.80... ...no response on the imap port, so lets try pop3: $ telnet life.ai.mit.edu pop3 Trying 128.52.32.80... Connected to ai.mit.edu. Escape character is '^]'. +OK Qpopper (version 4.0.3) at life starting. <12924.1032264741@life> Ah, so that works. For this setup, I would use pop.ai.mit.edu as the incoming mail server. The type would be POP or POP3. Finally, you probably also would like to read news, so looking for a news host would be a good idea. A similar route can be taken to find a news server. Usually the news hostname is "news" or "nntp": $ host news.ai.mit.edu news.ai.mit.edu is an alias for entertainment-tonight.ai.mit.edu. entertainment-tonight.ai.mit.edu has address 128.52.32.26 Okay, lets try testing the NNTP port on news.ai.mit.edu: $ telnet news.ai.mit.edu nntp Trying 128.52.32.26... ...so, it doesn't seem to be responding to nntp, so we should keep looking for a news server. A next good guess would be news.mit.edu: $ host news.mit.edu news.mit.edu is an alias for SENATOR-BEDFELLOW.mit.edu. SENATOR-BEDFELLOW.mit.edu has address 18.181.0.25 ...okay, so this host exists as well, lets try it: $ telnet news.mit.edu nntp Trying 18.181.0.25... Connected to SENATOR-BEDFELLOW.MIT.EDU. Escape character is '^]'. 502 senator-bedfellow.mit.edu: Access denied to your node - usenet@mit.edu Ah, so it is running a news server, which I assume is accessible from inside MIT. (but not to me!) So, for the NNTP server, I would use news.mit.edu. Hopefully this will be helpful in determining your settings, although it looks like you have no problems with figuring out how to post :) -- Josh Huber ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 5+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2002-09-17 12:20 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 5+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- [not found] <y44r8fugvs1.fsf@nestle.ai.mit.edu> 2002-09-16 10:19 ` How to get information about your system and network for setting up gnus email Kai Großjohann [not found] ` <wtnbs6yi94z.fsf@licia.dtek.chalmers.se> 2002-09-16 12:08 ` Don Saklad 2002-09-16 12:35 ` Adam Sjøgren [not found] ` <y44y9a13dhw.fsf@nestle.ai.mit.edu> 2002-09-17 0:04 ` RL [not found] ` <8765x5zmrn.fsf@virgil.koldfront.dk> [not found] ` <y44admhk3ry.fsf@nestle.ai.mit.edu> 2002-09-17 12:20 ` How to get informational details " Josh Huber
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