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IFMAIL(8)		     System Manager's Manual		       IFMAIL(8)

NAME
     ifmail - Convert RFC-822 and RFC-1036 mail/news to FTN Fidonet packets.

     ifnews - Convert RFC-1036 Usenet news to FTN Fidonet packets.

Synopsis
     ifmail  [-h]  [-x verbosity]  [-I file]  [-n]  [-r Address] [-g grade]  re-
     ceipent ...

     ifnews [-h]  [-x verbosity]  [-I  file]   [-r  Address]  [-g  grade]   [re-
     ceipent]

Description
     Ifmail  converts  RFC-822 compliant mail and RFC-1036 compliant news to FTN
     packets. It must run setuid owner of fidonet related  stuff.   The  current
     packet  naming is BinkleyTerm, with file/directory names in lowcase. Naming
     conventions are implemented in a separate source file, pktname.c,	to  make
     modifications easier.

     The  default  mode  is  the  mail mode of operation. In mail mode, you must
     specify recepient address(es) on the command line, in the form:
     "Eugene.Crosser@p14.f6.n5020.z2.fidonet.org".

     The first recepient address is used as the routing address, if  no  routing
     address is specified.  In news mode then the $NEWSSITE environment variable
     is used as the routing address.

     When the news mode is in effect, (i.e. "-n" key is specified or the program
     is  called  by  alias  "ifnews")  a  news article (or batch) is expected on
     stdin.

     Ifmail will try to preserve as much information as possible in  "X-FTN-..."
     headers  and  "^ARFC-..."	kludges, and restore messages more or less accu-
     rately to their original form when double-gatewaying.

     A dbm-based alias database is supported, so if  a	message  passes  from  a
     newsgroup	to  an	echo, the author's free form name and domain address are
     stored, and when a netmail reply comes from fidonet to that free form name,
     it is passed as a mail message to the remembered domain address.

     ATTENTION: This mechanism will not work if you  specify  fidonet-style  ad-
     dress  as the "visible name" in your MTA.	Do not do it!  Even if you don't
     have an official Internet domain, use something.uucp as  your  primary  ma-
     chine name, NOT fN.nM.zL.fidonet.org.

     Several addresses may be specified in the config file, netmail from fidonet
     addressed	to  any of those addresses is assumed local and resolved through
     the aforementioned database, otherwise the mail will be routed through  the
     normal  MTA (and presumably packed to some other fidonet node). If there is
     a "To:" line at the beginning of the fido message,  the  address  is  taken
     from it (ONLY THE FIRST ADDRESS!).

     When an RFC message is split, unique MSGIDs are generated for all parts af-
     ter  the  first one. In any case, the original "Message-ID:" header is pre-
     served in the "^ARFC-Message-ID:" kludge and used if the message comes back
     to usenet on some (other) gateway.

     On the way from news to echo, if the node to which the packet is being cre-
     ated is present in an "X-FTN-SEEN-BY:" header, the message is not	included
     in  the packet. SEEN-BY lines in the messages included into the packet con-
     sist of (1)  your	node  primary  address,  (2)  copy  of	"X-FTN-SEEN-BY:"
     header(s),  (3)  ftn  addresses  that  could  be parsed from the CNews file
     "$NEWSCTL/log" in the line with the corresponding Message-ID. For the  lat-
     ter  to  work,  you  should  have a Cnews compatible log file available for
     reading and have an "ndbm" package. This works with INN too.

     ATTENTION: your feed name in the cnews "sys" file should  be  fNNN.nMMM  or
     pNNN.fMMM.nLLL, without zone and domain, see the examples included with the
     source distribution.

     In  some  cases, though, you will need to specify zone and/or domain of the
     feed, e.g. if you are exporting echomail  to  several  networks.	In  such
     case,  specify the "cutdown" fNNN.nMMM notation after the slash, to prevent
     exporting back (Refer the your news systems manual).  This trick  may  also
     be  useful  if  your  hub presents non-primary AKA in the echomail it gives
     you.

     Ifmail does make some attempt to process file attaches, but  only	locally.
     Not  passing  to the Internet and back, but if a fileattach netmail message
     is routed from one fidonet node to another, it probably will take	the  at-
     tached file with it.

     There  is	also a feature to define "forbidden" groups. If a usenet message
     is crossposted to some of the gated groups _and_ to some of  the  forbidden
     groups  it  will  not be passed to any fidonet echoes.  Messages with "Con-
     trol:" headers are also not passed to FidoNet.

OPTIONS
     -h      Display a short help message.

     -x verbosity      Set the debug verbosity verbosity may be a number from  0
     to 32 to set 'on' bits from 1 to number, or a string of letters where 'a' =
     bit 1, 'b' = bit 2, etc. up to bit 26.

     -I File	  Use the alternate configuration file File.

     -n       Set  news  mode  for  processing	RFC-1036 Usenet news rather than
     RFC-822 electronic mail.

     -r Address      Route packets to  the  Fidonet  address  Address.	 Address
     should be in the format "[pNN.]fNN.nNN[.zNN[.domain]]".

     -g Grade	   Set the type of Fidonet packet to create.  Where Grade is one
     of:
	  N = Normal (Default)
	  C = Crash
	  H = Hold

FILES
     $IFLIBDIR/config	   Runtime configuration file.

SEE ALSO
     ifcico(8), ifpack(8), ifunpack(8), iftoss(8)

Acknowledgements
     Some  ideas  taken from Fidogate/RFmail package, written by Teemu Torma and
     hacked by Martin Junius.  Some modeules taken from INN package.  Thanks  to
     Michael  Bravo  <mbravo@tctube.spb.su>  (who was the first) and many others
     for testing.

     1993, 1994 Eugene Crosser

     This is free software. You can do what you wish with it  as  long	as  this
     copyright notice is preserved.

4th Berkeley Distribution					       IFMAIL(8)

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