Re: tlug: Internet connections from Linux

[Rex Walters <rex@example.com>]

>>>>> Neil Booth writes:  (on 12 Oct 98)

> However, I'm unable to configure Netscape to send mail, because when I
> put "mail.iname.com" as my outgoing mail server and press OK, it
> complains about the host not being found.

Ah.  I see what is going on.  Netscape is asking for the name of a
*server* that it can send smtp requests to.  The only dns records for
mail.iname.com are MX records -- no CNAME or A records.  So when
netscape tries to convert mail.iname.com to an IP address it fails.  Try
using "mail.globecomm.net" (or one of its IP addresses) instead -- it's
a valid MX for iname.com.

> I imagine I have to put something in the /etc/hosts file, but what? I
> have no idea what their IP address is. Why does NS for Linux need to
> know where this host is, but NS for Windows doesn't?

Maybe NS for windows also looks for MX records?

> Also, I have permission problems when trying to dial my ISP as a
> non-root user. Could someone tell me how they approach this (in terms of
> permissioning?) As I'm just a home user, I'd like to configure it so
> anyone can dial out.

Either an suid program to do the dialing (both RH and Linux provide
something to do this -- usernetctl or somesuch) or sudo are simple
solutions to the problem.  For PPP startup, I'd favor the suid approach,
but in general sudo is the answer.  Sudo is at
"http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/".

Finally, FWIW:

I actually don't like funnelling all of my mail outgoing mail through my
ISP's smtp server (I'd rather deliver directly to the closest mail
exchange to the recipient).

My prejudices are well known, but I'm rather fond of the
following setup for outgoing mail on my home machine:

    o All mail clients configured to use localhost (127.0.0.1) as their
      SMTP server.

    o Qmail is configured to spool all outgoing mail in
      ~alias/Outgoing/.

    o PPP startup scripts are configured to start maildir2smtp (from the
      serialmail package at http://pobox.com/~djb/serialmail.html)
      whenever the link is up.  This is particularly easy if you use
      supervise and svc from daemontools
      (http://pobox.com/~djb/daemontools.html).

For incoming mail, each user uses fetchmail
(http://earthspace.net/~esr/fetchmail/) to pull from that user's ISP
account via POP or IMAP and hand it off to qmail for delivery via SMTP.

Qmail then delivers to ~/Mailbox (by default).  Most MUAs are smart
enough to use the MAIL environment variable to look for mail, so as long
as you've configured the default user environment correctly every user
on your system should be able to read and send mail with almost any MUA.

I'm rather fond of the wmppp mini-applet for windowmaker (should work
with any window manager).  Nice two button applet to start/stop PPP,
with a nice little load graph, modem led status,  and current bps transfer
stats.  You just tell it the name of your PPP start, stop, and restart
scripts.  Recommended.  You can see what it looks like and retrieve it at
http://windowmaker.org/projects.html -- look for "Warp's Apps".

This setup works quite well for me.

Regards,
-- 
Rex

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