Subject: Trying to Configure Pine

From: Aaron Herskowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 17:11:47 -0500

Hi.  I am new to this list and Pine, and I was hoping that you experienced Pine  
users/administrators could help with a few questions I have.  I have read  
through the docs, but can't find the answers I need (maybe I don't have all the  
docs?!)  Most of these questions are specific to my platform, but others may be  
straight Pine configuration problems.

I am installing Pine for usage by our dial-up users.  I am working with Pine  
3.87 on a NeXTstation running NEXTSTEP 3.1.  I have everything compiled, and it  
works great, but there are a few problems I am having with the configuration:

1. e-mail address full name expansion:  This really isn't a problem because I  
have it working, but I feel like I used duct tape to make it work.  The way our  
campus mail configuration is (we have one mail server for approx 280  
workstations) all mail is sent to [email-masked] (no hostnames attached,  
just the domain name.)  All machines on campus mount /usr/spool/mail from the  
mailhost.  Also, the way our hosts are set, the "hostname" command will return  
"hostname" not "hostname.alleg.edu".  So... 

    a. if a Pine user composes mail, types in an on-campus address in the To:  
field, it is expanded to "Full Name <user@hostname>" which is incorrect (it  
should have the domain name and not the hostname).  

    b. If I set the "user-domain" variable in /usr/local/lib/pine.conf to  
"alleg.edu" then the e-mail address is now expanded to "[email-masked]" (correct  
e-mail address, but no full name expansion anymore...ugh!)  

    c. If I change the hostname of the machine so that the hostname command  
returns "hostname.alleg.edu", and set the "use-only-domain-name" variable in  
/usr/local/lib/pine.conf then the e-mail address is expanded to "Full Name  
<[email-masked]>" which is exactly what I want....hurray!

But, the problem with configuration "c" is that I now have 1 machine who's  
hostname includes the domain name, while all other 279 machines on campus don't  
include the hostname.  No big deal, but it would be nice to understand what is  
going on here.  Is there a NeXT Sys Admin out there that had the same problem?   
I figure that the full name expansion is done via netinfo, but why can't Pine do  
the full name expansion if you have "user-domain" set?!

2. I would like to hear from users running Pine on NeXTs.  I have been trying to  
see how compatable NeXTmail and Pine are:
    a. has someone written a script/program to put the ~/.NeXT/.mailaliases into  
the ~/.addressbook format (it should be simple, but I thought I would ask first)
    b. can Pine read NeXTmail attachements or handle the NeXTmail mailbox format  
(table_of_contents) with a driver of some sort?  Is Pine flexible enough that  
one could be written and sort of slapped on the side if you wanted?
    c. is there a NeXT application that I can use which will decode both  
NeXTmail and MIME attachments so that I don't have to give 2 different  
applications to my users (one for NeXTmail attachments and one for MIME)??
    d. Mail.app in NEXTSTEP 3.1 removes the /usr/spool/mail/username file after  
it gets the mail.  If no new mail has arrived and a user runs Pine, Pine  
complains when it starts up saying that INBOX doesn't exist and no folder is  
open and it beeps a few times.  I have a feeling that this will confuse our  
users (sounds sad doesn't it.)  Is there anyway around this?

3. Was Pine somewhat developed on a NeXT?!  I was surprised to see NeXT app MIME  
interfaces on ftp.cac.washington.edu.  Also, some references in the  
documentation refer to features being available on the NeXT, but not tested on  
other platforms.

4. Is there a specific technical document (besides the code) that details how  
Pine and netinfo communicate?

Thanks for your time,
Aaron
---
Aaron Herskowitz     [NeXTmail and MIME Welcomed]    E-Mail: [email-masked]
Academic Systems Manager, Technical and Network Services   Voice: (814)332-2755
Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania                   Fax: (814)333-9699

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 14:27:55 -0800 (PST)

Hi -

     Here is an answer to some of your questions.  I don't know the answer to
all of them; hopefully one of my colleagues can fill in the blanks.

     Pine does not read NeXTmail attachments.  There are no plans to do so.
NeXTmail is a private format used only by NeXT.  The Internet standard is
MIME.  I have no idea when, or even if, NeXT plans to fix NeXTmail to use MIME
instead of their proprietary format; there have been reports of such work.

     I hope you appreciate the problems we face if we start trying to support
non-standard proprietary formats.  Even if we did, NeXTmail would be fairly
low on the priority list compared to cc:mail, Oracle, Microsoft Mail, etc.

     I have heard rumors of NeXT applications which will translate NeXTmail
into MIME, but I don't know of any directly.

     Personally, I recommend that you give serious consideration to abandoning
NeXTmail.  It is a dead end.  No other vendors support it, or to my knowledge
have any plans for future support, whereas many vendors support (or have
announced plans to support) MIME, including Microsoft.

     NeXTmail's hiding of mailboxes in its own private directory was a reason
(there were others) why NeXTmail was never seriously considered around here.
You could try adding a c-client module to Pine to recognize where NeXTmail
hides mail.  Take a look at the mbox module to see how you do subclassing of
the bezerk driver in c-client.  You may be able to win with a minor
modification to the mbox_file() routine, plus linking in the mboxdriver in the
pine.c main module via an appropriate mail_link() call.

     Pine was developed on a NeXT, as that was the workstation sitting on its
programmer's desk.  The current development platform is ULTRIX, although that
will change soon.  c-client, the underlying engine used by Pine, was
originally developed on a Macintosh, but has been homed on a NeXT for the past
five years.  However, the NeXT is used strictly as a BSD Unix clone.

     MailManager, the NeXT GUI application, was started at about the same time
as Pine, but development on it ended three years ago when it became clear that
NeXT wasn't going anywhere (there were tens of MailManager users compared to
thousands of Pine users back then...).  I still use MailManager, but it is
showing its age compared to Pine.  One benefit of MailManager is that it is a
NeXT GUI application and does interoperate completely with Pine.

     Pine uses the standard UNIX system calls for system information lookup.
There is no specific knowledge in Pine of NetInfo.

-- Mark --

---

From: Alex Tang <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1993 21:48:53 -0500 (EST)

> announced plans to support) MIME, including Microsoft.

Hi folks, i was wonderinf if anyone could give me more information about
Microsoft (and other LAN packages), supporting IMAP and/or MIME.  Mr. Crispin
hints here that Microsoft will.  This could make for an interesting turn of
events in mail.  (How about Lotus?)

thanx...alex...

Alex Tang  ---  [email-masked][email-masked]
-----------+    U of M, SNRE: Student and Computer Consultant II,
PGP on req.|    ITD/CSS Consultant, Short asian with long hair :)
or finger  |    "it's kinda like getting your wisdom teeth out...
                   You're glad you did it, but it wasn't much fun
                   at the time.    --my friend on her trip to Japan.

---

From: Benjamin Chuang <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1993 03:37:19 -0500 (EST)

According to some of the reports floating around
at U of M,  both Lotus and Microsoft have indicated
that they will be adding MIME at some point. I
have no idea of what the time frame would be...

As for IMAP, I don't think that is in the cards,
IMHO.

Email Migration Project Documentation Team
Benjamin Chuang, User Servcies, ITD, U of M

Go West!