Text of TeleFinder Chat from Tuesday, September 23, 1997 11 AM PDT.
In attendance:
From Spider Island: Rusty Tucker,
Sysops: Michael Davidson, mikael fredriksson, Jim S, Ken Sutherland, Jonathan Paisley, Robert Hall
Michael Davidson: I noticed that Rusty's server claims its 8 minutes after the hour.
Rusty Tucker: hello!
mikael fredriksson: Mine did the first time i entered in to the chat room
Michael Davidson: But its 3 minutes before the hour
Michael Davidson: Hi Rusty.
mikael fredriksson: Hi!
Michael Davidson: My responses are very delayed again today
Rusty Tucker: Mine are quick
Rusty Tucker: Must be a slow connection.
Michael Davidson: Rusty, you must have not implemented Vremya yet
Rusty Tucker: Vremya?
Michael Davidson: :)
Michael Davidson: The story of my life
Michael Davidson: Rusty, the ISP has screwed me....the man that takes care of switching my mail to smtp was gone all last week and won't be in till Friday...anyway...
mikael fredriksson: Vremya, Program to set your system clock from a atomic one
Michael Davidson: I have found a new provider in my town that is owned by an old friend, he will set me up right I'm sure
Rusty Tucker: o i c
Michael Davidson: It works VERY well with Mail Server's scheduler and only takes a few minutes to set up (Vremya, that is)
Rusty Tucker: I take a look. I had buku problems with the Network Time control panel, so this might be good
Michael Davidson: mikael, aren't you the one that uploaded Vremya to SI?
Michael Davidson: I have NEVER had a single problem with Vremya
mikael fredriksson: yes
Rusty Tucker: that's good to hear
Michael Davidson: The skinny is, that I wasn't able to get mail with the new beta, but I did see the commands issued in the log...I just can't get any mail to go to the mailbox because they have it configured wrong.
Michael Davidson: I did have a few questions about smtp gate and RFC 1985
Rusty Tucker: ok
Jim S.: Hi all
Rusty Tucker: Hi Jim
Michael Davidson: Does smtp gate only issue the ETRN at the beginning of the time set to allow for smtp connections and when mail is sent.
Michael Davidson: Jim, Hello!!!
Michael Davidson: It seems that with 1985, it could shoot off ETRN at a sysop specified time.
Ken Sutherland: evening
Michael Davidson: Like, e.,g., every 5 minutes
Jonathan Paisley: hey
Rusty Tucker: Only at the beginning, any other time the remote server will send your mail directly
Rusty Tucker: Hey Jon!
Michael Davidson: Jim, did you get my second email ranting, i didn't get a reply from you
Michael Davidson: That's true, that makes sense......duhhhhhhhh :)
Jim S.: Yes, have not replied, yet..
mikael fredriksson: Any mail cgi news ? ;-)
Jonathan Paisley: I will probably release the beta as-is in the next few days
Michael Davidson: Rusty, one more thing, from everything I have heard and read, you MUST have an IP# for GETTING mail by way of smtp...you thought maybe a domain name was sufficient, I believe.
Rusty Tucker: yes, you need an IP number to use the Internet
Rusty Tucker: it does not need to be static though
Michael Davidson: sorry, a dedicated IP#
Michael Davidson: Yes, I believe it does to GET mail by way of smtp
Jonathan Paisley: you could get yourself a dynamic DNS
Jonathan Paisley: that has a TTL of about 5 minutes
Michael Davidson: TTL??
Jonathan Paisley: time-to-live
Jonathan Paisley: you update the record in the domain name server every time you log on PPP and update the DNS with your current IP
Michael Davidson: Name an example of one Jonathan
Jonathan Paisley: how do you mean?
Michael Davidson: I mean what product name would allow me to do this, any mac based DNS?
Jonathan Paisley: I'm not sure, but I know monolith Internet services provide a free service that does this, but you have to have your domain name in their root domain.
Michael Davidson: cool, but I can get a static IP# already and I have a domain name associated with it already, so I guess I don't need it, but its nice to know it can be done
Michael Davidson: Anyway, again, Rusty, I was told and I read some info which implies (almost explicitly) that you must have a static ip# for getting smtp mail.
Michael Davidson: I may be wrong, I wish I knew for sure
Rusty Tucker: As long as you have a domain name that can be converted to the correct IP at the time of delivery, SMTP will work.
Rusty Tucker: A static IP makes this easier, but not necessary.
Michael Davidson: Bottom line Rusty, it will be a little longer before I can test RFC 1985; nevertheless even for those with dedicated lines, it is a good thing to have for when there connection or server go down.
Jonathan Paisley: this is where updating your DNS when you log on useful
Michael Davidson: I buy that Rusty
Jonathan Paisley: Michael: Why can't you use Spider Island's mail gateway and pick up when you connect to your ISP?
Michael Davidson: right Jonathan. either a static ip or updating your DNS each logon is necessary
Michael Davidson: by which gateway, smtp?
Jonathan Paisley: no, using TF-TF transfer
Rusty Tucker: TFnet
Jonathan Paisley: yah
Michael Davidson: I could use smtp, esp. since rusty implemented 1985, except my isp tech are inept, except for the guy that's out of town
Michael Davidson: I do use tfnet now
Jonathan Paisley: You could perhaps persuade your ISP to run TF Server/Mail server on a spare mac if they have one
Michael Davidson: I MUST use tfnet now
Ken Sutherland: please write 2000 times, i must use tfnet or else
Michael Davidson: Then I would have to remotely handle it, and I don't want that, although with TB2, it wouldn't be the worst thing
Jonathan Paisley: At highlander we use this solution
Jonathan Paisley: We barely ever have to touch the machine
Rusty Tucker: I like that, get your ISP to buy a TF license and install it there ! :)
Michael Davidson: Cool Jonathan, first time I even thought about something like that
Michael Davidson: Shouldn't ALL isp's have a TF license?
Michael Davidson: there should be a law
Michael Davidson: Jim, any headway yet on Popsicle?
Jim S.: Most ISP can't spell Mac much less TF:-)
Michael Davidson: Rusty, does the mail come from an isp pop mail account in RFC 822 format
Rusty Tucker: yep, has to
Jonathan Paisley: [just out of interest, I've just registered a DNS address 'jon.ml.org' Cool huh!]
Jim S.: Do we need it?
Jonathan Paisley: you don't need to even look at the content of each mail message
Jonathan Paisley: just stick it in the mail server folder
Michael Davidson: Jim, hear that. Jim and I are trying to get the pop gate going
Michael Davidson: ok, now the other problem is attachments to mail
Jonathan Paisley: that's irrelevant since they're encoded in the POP3/RFC message
Michael Davidson: will that be any prob for Jim, or will MS handle them
Michael Davidson: what's ml.org Jonathan
Michael Davidson: groovy Jon about the attachments.
Michael Davidson: That makes Jim's job even easier
Jonathan Paisley: MS handles everything. all popsicle needs to do is retrieve the data from the POP3 server and dump it to individual files in the mail server spool folder
Jonathan Paisley: ml.org is Monolith Internet services
Jim S.: AGAIN: Do wee need Popsicle, as a response in Sysop conference says we don't, Rusty??
Michael Davidson: except maybe breaking up large attachments into temp files
Michael Davidson: Do they need to be individual files Jonathan
Jonathan Paisley: why? Mail Server can handle even the largest of files.
Michael Davidson: Yes Jim
Rusty Tucker: I didn't see that note Jim, which topic?
Jonathan Paisley: No, Popsicle could take each message and append it to a file, separating each msg with a NULL (0) character. The file type/creator is 'mMsg' 'UL99'
Michael Davidson: we need a pop gate Jim (i haven't seen the response either Jim)
Rusty Tucker: u mean Drew's message?
Michael Davidson: Jonathan, sounds like you could write it in a day
Jim S.: Rusty: Sysop
Jonathan Paisley: drew's talking about a different thing
Rusty Tucker: He's an ISP that has SENDMAIL that supports ETRN
Rusty Tucker: If he's your ISP, you don't need it.
Rusty Tucker: But, there seem to be a lot of ISP's that prefer setting up universal POP accounts.
Michael Davidson: Jim, you didn't make it clear what popsicle was in that message.
Michael Davidson: That is true rusty, you can get unified pop accounts easily and don't need an IP#, which is harder to get
Rusty Tucker: I think that the UNIX pop servers have better abilities to report on traffic, mail store size and so on.
Jim S.: Michael: Look at TF.Sysop message from Drew
Michael Davidson: A popgate will definitely enhance TF's salability. For $20 a month, you can provide Internet email for all your business reps
Rusty Tucker: And as MD says, there's none of the dynamic IP hassles.
Ken Sutherland: please note, our tf server at our isp is a legal second site , i own 21823 and 20504 as verified by spiderisland
Michael Davidson: The main hassle is handling the return paths, it would seem
Jonathan Paisley: how do you mean Michael?
Michael Davidson: Well, the mail goes to the first mail account, the unified account, then is taken and "forwarded" to the TF BBS local mail address. The TF user should not reply to the unified account, so you have to handle this little problem
Jonathan Paisley: Again, this is all irrelevant, because all the necessary information is in the RFC822 headers
Ken Sutherland: also for those reading the chat log, all demo keycode requests are checked with spiderisland, rusty will deal with all bogus tf serial numbers
Michael Davidson: Then, given everything you have said, popgate only has to put one line into each message (for MS to use for sending to local mailboxes). Thus, it is simply a get pop mail and that's it
Jim S.: If Popsicle is a uses Pop3 is any reformat required for 822
Jonathan Paisley: Michael: which extra line is this that is required?
Rusty Tucker: no, just capture the data and save it as a file
Jonathan Paisley: ...what I've been saying all along...
Michael Davidson: don't you need an X-Local-To even
Jonathan Paisley: no, that's added by intermediate mail servers
Rusty Tucker: Just make type and creator
Rusty Tucker: hParm.fileParam.ioFlFndrInfo.fdCreator = 'R*ch';
hParm.fileParam.ioFlFndrInfo.fdType = 'R822';
Jonathan Paisley: Mail server will resolve the local user name from the proper 'To' field
Rusty Tucker: Creator can be anything actually.
Michael Davidson: Then, Rusty, POPSICLE or whatever the name should definitely be implemented ASAP. It is a way for businesses with a $20 account to handle all their mail
Michael Davidson: I think that it could be BUILT INTO MS
Jim S.: Michael: can that program I sent you be used to see if your ISP support rfc1985?
Jonathan Paisley: rusty: Presumably it could also be a 'mMsg' file? and therefore one file could be used for all the incoming messages per session
Michael Davidson: Mine does support it JIM, but I didn't try it with your program, probably could be. But then so can SMTP gate in 5.5.3 beta
Rusty Tucker: I'd stick with the R822 file, mMsg files are slightly different, but R822 is pure RFC822/MIME
Michael Davidson: I would think it would be one big file rather than creating multiple little mail messages, but I may be wrong
Jonathan Paisley: ok, but one RFC822 message per file? Can more than one message be inserted into an R822 file by delimiting with Nulls rusty?
Michael Davidson: This sounds too easy not to implement
Rusty Tucker: I'd make multiple files for a few reasons.
Jim S.: You are wrong
Jonathan Paisley: who is
Michael Davidson: Jeez, the advantages are great, the programing is minimal
Ken Sutherland: all of you
Ken Sutherland: i think Rusty shot JR
Jim S.: a small file on my system is 8k
Rusty Tucker: a- it aids in error handling ( lose connect , just delete current local message )
Michael Davidson: probably I'm wrong Jon
Jonathan Paisley: Jim: good point there
Rusty Tucker: b- ms can begin processing the incoming msgs as soon as the file is closed.
Michael Davidson: Good point Rusty,
Rusty Tucker: c- there is not a lick of conversion to worry about.
Ken Sutherland: rusty, how many Pop3 can ms handle all at once
Rusty Tucker: d- you'll never have too many files on the system because MS will parse them out as soon as they come in.
Jonathan Paisley: rusty: but the program could easily shorten the file to the last successfully retrieved message if the connection is lost
Jim S.: the size does not make any dif. as they do stick around long.
Jim S.: add: not
Jonathan Paisley: heh
Rusty Tucker: righto Jim
Michael Davidson: Would the networking code be the only real problem with creating this POP gateway?
Rusty Tucker: Single files will actually use less disk space.
Rusty Tucker: Oh one more thing
Jonathan Paisley: rusty: please explain point 'c' a bit further
Jim S.: Rusty: right
Jonathan Paisley: rusty: How will single files use less disk space?
Rusty Tucker: make the file type a private type until your done processing it.
Jonathan Paisley: but of course ;)
Rusty Tucker: cua ms will sweep them out before your session is done
Rusty Tucker: cua = because
Jonathan Paisley: interesting abbreviation
Jonathan Paisley: even
Michael Davidson: If the networking code is not a real problem to implement, I see absolutely no good reason not to implement pop 3 gateway asap...surely it enhances TF more than anything else on the web
Rusty Tucker: c- ( explained ) If you use the mMsg format, there are some minor ( very ) diffs from straight RFC822
Michael Davidson: Why mess with conversion when you don't have to?
Rusty Tucker: ( working from memory ) CR is the delimiter, and there is a message separator.
Ken Sutherland: fyi , i ran hfs+ this weekend and a folder that held 384 emails shrank from 11.4mb to 1.4mb, I cant wait till November for OS8.0.1 to be released as it will incorporate hfs+
Ken Sutherland: anyone else tried it?
Michael Davidson: I haven't Ken, how big is the drive partition
Ken Sutherland: 2gb
mikael fredriksson: only 8.01 no HFS +
Ken Sutherland: 1k files became 1k
Michael Davidson: wow, I would have assumed much bigger
Jonathan Paisley: what was the allocation table size?
Ken Sutherland: just think about all those users and there email folders
Ken Sutherland: standard format
Ken Sutherland: all i did was select erase disk in system
Jim S.: Key: Once switched no going back to HFS ?
Ken Sutherland: this works great with the mailbox cleanup we added to online assistant for telefinder
Ken Sutherland: would you want to
Jim S.: Removal disk.
Jim S.: Testing?
Ken Sutherland: i am going to dup my users area and put it on the hfs+ drive and compare size
Ken Sutherland: my test drive is a Micropolis 2gb
Ken Sutherland: and i goofed
Ken Sutherland: it was partitioned to 800mb, not 2gb
Jim S.: BTW is there any change to NU's Speed disk for OS8?
Ken Sutherland: NU 3.5.1
Ken Sutherland: not yet
Rusty Tucker: Yep, and you need another for 8.01
Rusty Tucker: Are there ANY HFS+ tools out?
Ken Sutherland: is there an issue we need to know about?
Rusty Tucker: Yes, there are not any low level disk editors for HFS+
Rusty Tucker: IE you can't recover a trashed disk
Ken Sutherland: well it is still alpha (big grin)
Rusty Tucker: I would not put anything of value on an HFS+ disk, unless it is being religiously stored to tape.
Ken Sutherland: me 2
Ken Sutherland: i was just testing it
Jim S.: Is HFS+ same kind of stuff MS is hype on Win98?
Jonathan Paisley: a user on SI rusty?
Rusty Tucker: yep
Rusty Tucker: Terry White
Jonathan Paisley: cool. I'll get in touch
Rusty Tucker: http://www.macgroup.org
Rusty Tucker: Jim, did you catch the note about the 'private file type'
Jim S.: yep
Rusty Tucker: when you process a message into mil servers spool folder, its good practice to keep it as a private file type
Rusty Tucker: until it's finished writing and closed.
Jim S.: Like done for News>
Rusty Tucker: This keeps MS from trying to use it while its busy.
Jim S.: change to BBEitd type
Rusty Tucker: And will keep MS from processing a partial file if the system crashes for any reason before the message is complete.
Rusty Tucker: Great, just want to get that bit of info into the log.
Jim S.: I lost my connection so could not get log will get later.
Rusty Tucker: the log will be online at www.spiderisland.com/~chat/
Jim S.: Nap time... CU
Michael Davidson: Given the simplicity of the task for Pop gate, why not build it in Rusty?
Rusty Tucker: Any last q's?
Michael Davidson: Or is there networking code that would be a pain to implement
Michael Davidson: MS is almost the whole gateway already
Rusty Tucker: Nope, I can either put it in the every growing queue....
Rusty Tucker: or someone else can build it.
Rusty Tucker: Its not any easier or harder either way
Jonathan Paisley: heh, the latter is preferable for obvious reasons
Jonathan Paisley: 'build it' and debug it
Rusty Tucker: I'd build it as a gateway app, anyway
Michael Davidson: I will test any and all beta's, alphas etc for a pop gate
Michael Davidson: I will test your 1985 as soon as I get my ISP to cooperate Rusty
Jim S.: For me to test I will have to get a Domain name, etc.
Jonathan Paisley: Jim: no you wont
Michael Davidson: why not Jon
Jim S.: ??
Jonathan Paisley: just make a POP3 account on your TF server, have a POP3 node running and shove some RFC822 mail messages in the user's mailbox
Michael Davidson: It should work with a single account, but it will need a unified domain-wide account to be effectively tested
Jonathan Paisley: The job of the program is to get those messages out of the user's mailbox and into mail server's spool folder ;)
Michael Davidson: Also, couldn't it be made to go to multiple mailboxes. This would be nice for some users
Jonathan Paisley: Michael: there is no difference from the client's point of view with a domain-wide account
Jonathan Paisley: Michael: I don't think you quite understand the protocol completely...
Jim S.: NO NO, my program get from the ISP and put in file(s).
Michael Davidson: you could get your mail at your isp mail account and from your TF account in your TF BBS mailbox
Michael Davidson: I understand that Jonathan, but...
Jonathan Paisley: I know, but the idea is that for testing you pretend that your local POP3 account IS your ISP's account
Robert Hall: hello....what did i miss :)
Michael Davidson: I see, but then do you know exactly what I mean when I say domain-wide account
Jonathan Paisley: yes. [i think so] all mail messages for a particular domain (or more than one domain) are put in that mailbox
Michael Davidson: Any_name@mydomain.com goes into a single pop mailbox. Then the pop gate ...Yes you got it
Jonathan Paisley: For testing, what I would do is copy some RFC822 mail messages randomly from some of my users mailboxes and put them all into this test account that I have been speaking of.
Michael Davidson: True you can use a single Pop3 account, but then only one name is tested
Jonathan Paisley: 'one name is tested' how do you mean?
Michael Davidson: That would work too, for testing. But I have a domain-wide account and that would be "real-world" testing
Jonathan Paisley: as I say, there is no difference to the client
Michael Davidson: the normal pop 3 account is to one name, for example smuck@domain.com;
Robert Hall: ? (off the topic, may have been covered earlier)
Michael Davidson: I want to see mail that comes to each of my users names go into their TF BBS mailboxes
Jonathan Paisley: Michael: A normal Pop3 account in the form username@domain.com means that the client logs in as 'username' to the server 'domain.com'. It's nothing to do with the mail address
Rusty Tucker: GA Robert
Jonathan Paisley: Michael: As I keep reiterating, all this will be done automatically. Provided your ISP has set up the domain wide POP3 mailbox properly, there will BE NO problems
Robert Hall: just curious how Johnathan's FTP plug in was coming along, and also, the ETRN command works good Rusty, tested it out (we have a static connection, but i tried it temporarily on a schedule and it worked fine)
Michael Davidson: Yes, but the names that come into my domain wide account aren't just username.
Robert Hall: Do you plan on implementing the VRFY command??? don't know what frc it is
Rusty Tucker: Good to hear!
Michael Davidson: I believe you Jonathan. I just want to watch it happen. I've wanted this for 2 years at least
Rusty Tucker: VRFY is used to verify an email address.
Jonathan Paisley: Çaren't just usernameÈ It doesn't matter; it's TF Mail Server's responsibility to deal with them
Rusty Tucker: It is not widely supported.
Robert Hall: i mean RFC, i guess the VRFY command allows you to check for a certain name at that mails server, example: I type VRFY rusty and it say RUSTY
Robert Hall: oops I'm a slow typer today....
Michael Davidson: I understand that MS is responsible to deal with the many users names Jon
Jonathan Paisley: Robert: The FTP plug is coming along nicely. I have implemented the /~user name/ directories we discussed last week. Access Privs seem to be fully secure, and I'm now working on the binhex/macbinary/text transfer modes
Rusty Tucker: Hey guys, time for me to get some lunch.
Rusty Tucker: Will be back at 6pm!!
Michael Davidson: Hey thanks Rusty.
Jonathan Paisley: I might too!
Robert Hall: cool Jonathan....maker sure you let us know when you need some testers :)
Jonathan Paisley: ok. will do
mikael fredriksson: ;-)
Jim S.: Michael: I just got you email.
Jonathan Paisley: bfn folks
Michael Davidson: Okay Jim..all the concerns I mentioned in it have been discussed here and seem not to be a problem.
Michael Davidson: Bye Jonathan, thanks!
Jim S.: Ok. I have made a copy and will study it. bfj.
Michael Davidson: Bye all
September 26, 1997
-- ©Copyright 1997, Spider Island Software