147 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
147 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
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Path: micasa!moore!telly!comspec!tvcent!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!news.cs.indiana.edu!purdue!spaf
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From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
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Newsgroups: news.lists,news.admin
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Subject: How to Construct the Mailpaths File
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Message-ID: <15404@ector.cs.purdue.edu>
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Date: 25 Jul 91 23:16:03 GMT
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Expires: 23 Oct 91 23:16:02 GMT
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Followup-To: news.lists
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Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
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Lines: 133
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Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU
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Supersedes: <14700@ector.cs.purdue.edu>
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Original-from: Gene Spafford (spaf@cs.purdue.edu)
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[Most recent change: 23 Jul 1991 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)]
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News 2.11 has been designed to make it simpler to submit articles to
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moderated newsgroups and to reply via mail to posted articles. For
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these functions to work, the file "mailpaths" must exist in the news
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library and contain current information. This file describes the
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syntax of the contents of the file and how to construct it for your site.
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Syntax
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------
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All lines in the file consist of a keyword followed by whitespace,
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followed by a printf-style format string which is used to encode a mail
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address. The format string should be constructed so that there is a
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single "%s" in the field, and other information necessary to construct
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a valid address to the appropriate site (see below).
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The keyword field consists of either the word "internet", the word
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"backbone", or some newsgroup pattern. These are examined by the
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software to determine which format-string to use. Note that the first
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appropriate line matched is the one used -- thus, the "backbone"
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keyword line should be placed last in the line if regional or local
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moderated groups are supported.
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Addresses that end up with both "!" and "@" symbols in the resulting
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address get converted so that only "!" symbols appear in the final
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address. An address of the form "foo!bar!baz@barf" will get converted
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to "foo!bar!barf!baz" and then mailed. This should work properly, for
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"dumb" mailers but you should test it to make sure; "smart" mailers
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should have the format fields encoded as a simple "%s". Note that *any*
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address with more than a single "@" in it is illegal.
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Submissions to moderated groups
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-------------------------------
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When you attempt to post to a moderated newsgroup (indicated by the
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letter "m" in the 4th field of the "active" file for that group),
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the action of "inews" is to mail the submission to the moderator.
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This is done by searching through "mailpaths" file for a keyword
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matching the newgroup being posted to, or, by default, the keyword
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"backbone". Matching occurs as in the "sys" file -- thus,
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"world" and "all" will also match everything, while "news" or
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"news.all" will only match articles posted in the "news" category.
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This feature can be used to support local moderated groups.
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Once a line has been matched, the name of the moderated group is
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transformed into an address. This is done by first turning all the
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imbedded periods within the newsgroup name into hyphens (e.g.,
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"news.lists" becomes "news-lists") because many mailers mishandle
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addresses with periods in the username (periods are supposed to be
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delimiters only in the host/domain part of RFC822 addresses, but some
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mailers "overreact"). Next, the transformed group name is encoded into
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an address using the format-string present on the line matched from
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"mailpaths" and the article is mailed. Thus, a posting to "news.lists"
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from a site with the line
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backbone emory!gatech!%s
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in the mailpaths file would have the article mailed to
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"emory!gatech!news-lists". Likewise, a line like
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backbone %s@gatech.edu
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would result in the article being mailed to "news-lists@gatech.edu".
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To make the mechanism for moderated postings simpler, a subset of the
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best-connected sites (plus some others) have committed to keeping a complete
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up-to-date set of mail aliases for the moderated groups. Therefore, to
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build this line in your "mailpaths" file, you need only construct
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an address to get the mail to one of these sites. In turn, once the
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submission reaches that site, it will be forwarded on to the
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appropriate moderator's mailbox.
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The sites currently maintaining these lists are given in the following
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list. Pick the one that is "closest" to your site and use it in your
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"backbone" format string:
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ames (ames.arc.nasa.gov)
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decuac (decuac.dec.com)
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decwrl (decwrl.dec.com)
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linus (linus.b.mitre.org)
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kddlab (kddlab.kddlabs.co.jp)
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mcnc (mcnc.org)
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mit-eddie (eddie.mit.edu)
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ncar (ncar.ucar.edu)
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osu-cis (cis.ohio-state.edu)
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rutgers (rutgers.edu)
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ucsd (ucsd.edu)
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tektronix (tektronix.tek.com)
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ucbvax (ucbvax.berkeley.edu)
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uflorida (uflorida.cis.ufl.edu)
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uunet (uunet.uu.net)
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uw-beaver (beaver.cs.washington.edu)
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watmath (math.waterloo.edu)
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Internet Mail
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-------------
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If you define the "INTERNET" flag when you build 2.11 news, the
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software will use the internet-style "From:" header when addressing
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replies mailed to postings. If your mailer does not have this capability,
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you can still (possibly) achieve the same thing by defining the
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"internet" line in your "mailpaths" file to forward such mail to
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a host that does have a mailer which understands internet-style addresses.
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The format of this line is very similar to the "backbone" line. As an
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example, consider:
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internet emory!gatech!mcnc!%s
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Thus, if "INTERNET" was defined when this version of news was built,
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any reply to a news article would not travel along the "Path:", but
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would instead be sent to "mcnc" for interpretation and remailing.
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For example, to reply to this article, the mail would be sent to
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"emory!gatech!mcnc!spaf@cs.purdue.edu" ->
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"emory!gatech!mcnc!cs.purdue.edu!spaf"
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Note: This is being provided as a service to sites which do not
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have routing mailers or which have difficulty replying to articles.
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It is *NOT* intended for everyone to pass mail to other sites to send.
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Excessive use of this feature may result in severe problems for
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the sites doing the relaying, so please simply define this field to
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be "%s" if your mailer understands domain-style (internet-style)
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addressing.
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The following sites will accept internet-format mail for forwarding:
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decuac
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kddlab
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mcnc
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ucsd
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uunet
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uw-beaver
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watmath
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--
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Gene Spafford
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NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center,
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Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-1398
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Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu phone: (317) 494-7825
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