[TUHS] where is "the true arpanet mailer"?

[TUHS] where is "the true arpanet mailer"?

[Jeremy C. Reed]

I am reading the delivermail (later known as postbox and then sendmail) 
code from 4.0BSD and from sccs history from June 1980.

Its arpa-mailer(8) manual says it just spools the letter and actual 
delivery will be performed by the ARPANET mailer daemon and refers to 
mailer(ARPA) manual. The arpa.c code says "is stuck away in the 
outgoing arpanet mail queue for delivery by the true arpanet mailer."

Where is this true arpanet mailer?  I am guessing it periodically looks 
in /usr/spool/netmail/ and delivers the messages using FTP and RFC458. 
Where is this mailer(ARPA) manual?

Where is the ftp server code used for the incoming mail? (Example 
code mail-dm.c is provided for the ftp server to "handle the MAIL <user> 
command over the command connection.")

Also where is the uucp-mailer(8) manpage referenced in delivermail(8)?

  Jeremy C. Reed

echo 'EhZ[h ^jjf0%%h[[Zc[Z_W$d[j%Xeeai%ZW[ced#]dk#f[d]k_d%' | \
  tr            '#-~'            '\-.-{'

[TUHS] where is "the true arpanet mailer"?

[Clem Cole]

below...


On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Jeremy C. Reed <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:

> I am reading the delivermail (later known as postbox and then sendmail)
> code from 4.0BSD and from sccs history from June 1980.
>
sendmail was really a different code base from delivermail.  As Eric
(Allman) used to say, the later was created to solve the "header of the
week" issue he was fighting at the time.




>
> Its arpa-mailer(8) manual says it just spools the letter and actual
> delivery will be performed by the ARPANET mailer daemon and refers to
> mailer(ARPA) manual. The arpa.c code says "is stuck away in the
> outgoing arpanet mail queue for delivery by the true arpanet mailer."
>
> Where is this true arpanet mailer?  I am guessing it periodically looks
> in /usr/spool/netmail/ and delivers the messages using FTP and RFC458.
> Where is this mailer(ARPA) manual?
>
At one point there was an smtpd that was written by BBN.   I don't remember
why Eric did not continue to use it when he wrote sendmail.    At Berkeley
at the time, the only system that needed it was Ing70 later IngVax [which
of course Eric managed] because that was the Internet connection for the
systems on campus.   We all ran the BerkNet to the ingress systems for
Internet mail or to ernie (later ucbvax) to do UUCP mail.

He and I talked about about it once, I had always wished he had left the
different "connector" programs alone and just let sendmail be a header
rewriting system.




>
> Where is the ftp server code used for the incoming mail? (Example
> code mail-dm.c is provided for the ftp server to "handle the MAIL <user>
> command over the command connection.")
>
> Also where is the uucp-mailer(8) manpage referenced in delivermail(8)?
>
uucp just handed off to /bin/mail for delivery.  I thought delivermail did
the same thing. I think it was Kurt Shoens who did the splicing of Berkeley
delivermail to uucp, but again I've forgotten - a long time ago.  The SCCS
headers might say.  memory was that Kurt and Eric Schmidt

Clem
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[TUHS] where is "the true arpanet mailer"?

[Larry McVoy]

On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 04:57:40PM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> He and I talked about about it once, I had always wished he had left the
> different "connector" programs alone and just let sendmail be a header
> rewriting system.

+1

I get why he did what he did but holy mother of god is maintaining sendmail.cf
a black art.  We've switched to postfix.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com

[TUHS] where is "the true arpanet mailer"?

[Clem Cole]

Amen - I've always said that sendmail became what it was because it was the
SMTPD that went out in 4.2 and followings.   If the original BBN code had
been left alone, since most people did not have the issues Berkeley did,
they would never have bothered with sendmail.cf.  But because it was there
and >>conceptually<< you could do all sort of stuff with it, people tried.
  We'll never know.

I was a fan of MMDF for years and later qmail - but I switch ccc.com to
google when the first offered it small folks like me 8-10 years ago and I
never looked back.

Clem


On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 5:13 PM, Larry McVoy <lm at bitmover.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 04:57:40PM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> > He and I talked about about it once, I had always wished he had left the
> > different "connector" programs alone and just let sendmail be a header
> > rewriting system.
>
> +1
>
> I get why he did what he did but holy mother of god is maintaining
> sendmail.cf
> a black art.  We've switched to postfix.
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com
> http://www.bitkeeper.com
>
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