Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 08:50:05 -0800 (PST) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: baylisa@baylisa.org, sendmail@sendmail.org, freebsd-isp@freebsd.org, annouce@bafug.org Subject: sendmail 8.9.3 -- "ETRN enhancements" patches now available Message-ID: <200001071650.IAA16982@pau-amma.whistle.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On behalf of those of us at Whistle Communications who have been working on the enhancements to sendmail 8.9.3 to better support ETRN, it is my pleasure to make the patches available via anonymous FTP. They are located in ftp.whistle.com:/pub/misc/sendmail; that directory contains 3 files: * BayLISA.mgp.tgz a gzipped tarball of a MagicPoint "Short but Cool" presentation I made at BayLISA on 16 December, 1999 about the work we did. * sendmail-8.9.3+ETRN.patch.gz a gzipped set of patches to the base sendmail 8.9.3 distribution. * README a short note that indicates that mentioning "-p1" when patch is invoked would probably be A Good Thing (at least, it worked for me). As mentioned in the MagicPoint presentation, there are things we haven't (yet) managed to get done, but the code is working in production as-is, and we felt it was better to get it in your hands as soon as possible. Other than the MagicPoint presentation, the documentation is somewhat sparse, though I did update doc/op/op.me to at least mention the new configuration keywords. I will be happy to answer questions you may have about the code (or redirect those questions, as appropriate), as time and other resources permit. What the patches do is provide a mechanism by which sendmail can use separate queues for individual domains (that are indended to retrieve their mail via ETRN). (Those of us sufficiently ancient may note a certain similarity between this effect and the use of UUCP for sending mail. :-}) In the process, they also provide an arguably interesting illustrative example of the the use and power of the (relatively new) "regex" maps in sendmail. (Note, though, that this is an artifact of the implementation we/I chose; there is nothing in the code per se that requires the use of any particular kind of map to accomplish the transformation from a domain name to a directory path.) By providing these separate queue directories for just this purpose, mail to be retrieved via ETRN is no longer subject to the periodic queue runs that sendmail normally is set up to do to try to deliver mail that gets "stuck". Further, when the ETRN is actually done, having all of the mail to be retrieved in a single directory (that has nothing else in it) tends to rather focus sendmail's attention on the task at hand. (I.e., the queue-running sendmail doesn't have any irrelevant queued mail to examine, then ignore.) Each of these tends to reduce the resources required by sendmail for handling ETRN; it is our hope that the result will make the use of ETRN more attractive to ISPs and others who might be in a position to make use of it -- especially as a rational alternative to such constructs as multi-user POP maildrops. The patches are being contributed to sendmail.org, in the hope that something with similar functionality will be able to be integrated into sendmail, possibly as early as whatever follows 8.10. (We were, unfortunately, not fast enough to get it done in time for 8.10.) Naturally, there is no intent to change any of the licensing terms associated with the base code. Share and enjoy, david -- David Wolfskill dhw@whistle.com UNIX System Administrator voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (888) 347-0197 FAX: (650) 372-5915 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200001071650.IAA16982>