BM is designed to serve as the mail user-interface for the KA9Q TCP/IP inter-networking package. It provides a full set of mail services to the user which allows the sending and receipt of electronic mail.
2. BM Installation
To install BM requires the modification of the supplied configuration files and the creation of the proper directory structure. The following sections describe the file and directory structure used by BM and SMTP.
2.1 Directory Structure
:spool:mqueue This directory holds the outbound mail jobs for SMTP. Each job consists of 2 files a xxxx.txt and xxxx.wrk file where xxxx is a unique numerical prefix. The format of the files are described in a later section.
:spool:rqueue This directory is used by SMTP for jobs that have been received and will be processed by a user defined mail routing program. This directory is not used directly by BM.
:spool:mail This directory holds the individual mailboxes for each user name on your system. The extension .txt is added to the user name to form the mailbox name. Mail received by the SMTP server is appended to the mailbox file.
2.2 Configuration Files
2.2.1 The bm.rc file;. The bm.rc file provides BM with the configuration needed for the operation of the mailer.
The format for the bm.rc file is:
variable <space> value <cr>
The following variables are valid in the bm.rc file:
smtp <mail path>
defines the path to the directory containing the mailbox files. The default directory is :spool:mail on the current drive.
host <your host name >
Is used to set the local hostname for use in the RFC822 mail headers. This is a required field.
user <user name>
Defines the user name of the person who is sending mail. This is also used as the default mailbox for reading mail. On the AMPRNET this is usually set to your call. There is a DOS limit of 8 characters for the user name.
fullname <your full name>
Is used to provide your full name to the mailer for use in the comment portion of "From:" header line. The use of fullname is optional.
reply <return address>
Defines the address where you wish to receive replies to messages sent. This option is useful if you are operating your pc on a local area network and would like your mail replies sent to a more "well known host". The address specified by reply is used to generate a "Reply-To:" header in outbound mail. The "Reply-To:" header overrides the "From:" header which is the address normally used to reply to mail. This field is optional.
host nn2z.ampr
user nn2z
fullname Dave Trulli
# send my replies to the Sun
reply nn2z@ka9q.bellcore.com
2.3.1 The alias file; The alias file provides an easy way to maintain mailing lists. An alias can be any string of characters not containing the "@" symbol. The format for the alias file is:
alias recip1 recip2 recip3....<cr>
<tab> recip4
Note that a long list of aliases can be continued on an additional line by placing a tab or space on the continuation line.
In the above example, when specifying nnj as the recipient, BM will expand the alias into the list of recipients from the alias file. At this time an alias may not contain any other aliases.
2.3.2 :spool:mqeue:sequence.seq; The sequence file maintains a message counter which is used by BM and SMTP to generate message id's and unique filenames. This file is created by BM.
3. Commands
This section has not be written in time for this distribution. Please refer to the Help command under the Apple Menu for use of the new BMailer for the Macintosh.