Subject: PC-Pine connecting to UNIX Pine

From: Kneppers Marc <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 12:47:33 -0600 (MDT)

Hi,

I've installed Pine on our sysv4 system here and it is working great. I 
now have had a request to link up the PC's to the UNIX machine for mail.

We have a UNIX machine with an ethernet connection. The PC's are on a 
NOVELL network hooked into the Ethernet as well. All this is local - no 
internet access yet, but the UNIX box has an IP address and the NOVELL 
file server also has an IP address as well as the communication server.

We want to use PC-Pine for Windows. The way I understand it, PC-Pine acts 
as an smtp client and the UNIX box is the smtp server. We have downloaded 
PC-Pine and it is working ... but without accessing the mailboxes on the 
UNIX machine. (I get a message like '[host]: connection refused')

Problem: How do the PC's see their mailboxes on the UNIX machine. (normal 
acces from PC to UNIX is via a telnet process and a login/password deal).
On the PC's, the user names are: SAM (for example)
On the UNIX, the user names are: smiths (for the same user: sam smith) 

I get the feeling that this has something to do with IMAP but I am not 
sure. How is IMAP implemented? The documentation is scarce.

How does the WinSock stuff fit into this as well?

If you haven't guessed yet - PC's are not my strength - I am the UNIX guy.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The possible connection between the PC's and UNIX promises to be 
*extremely* useful and popular with the people around here.

Thanks,
Marc Kneppers

---

From: [email-masked] (Alan J Flavell)
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 1995 12:54:25 GMT

>file server also has an IP address as well as the communication server.
 
{much useful detail omitted}
 
As I understand it, there are basically two ways you can handle
this kind of situation.  You either go for a Novell-based mail
system within the PCs, with a gateway to interwork with the
Internet (Pegasus?), or you run a purely IP (Internet) based
email system on the PCs.  It looks as if you are following the
latter plan.  This factors Novell application levels out of your email
equation - but presumably you'll still be running their network
stack.  I'm not going to tell you that this is a good or bad way
to proceed - it depends on circumstances - in my area we go for
the IP-based solution too, because we are mainly interested in
Internet mail, but I know that other groups swear by Pegasus.
 
>UNIX machine. (I get a message like '[host]: connection refused')
 
Assuming your network configuration is otherwise correct, this is
telling you that your unix system is not running an IMAPD server
(IMAP protocol daemon).  As you say you're the unix guy, this would
seem to be your job ;-)  Look for the IMAPD in the PINE distribution.
 
>How does the WinSock stuff fit into this as well?
 
Winsock is a well defined internal interface for IP network
transport on the PC.  Since you say you run Novell, you presuably
run an appropriate protocol stack already - look for its particular
Winsock interface routine.  An alternative is to look for its
packet-driver interface (ODIPKT if you presently run an ODI-based
stack) and run someone else's packet-driver-to-winsock
software (Tattam's Trumpet Winsock has a good reputation - shareware).
 
Bear in mind the "network layer cake model" - you just need the
correctly defined interface at each layer of the network cake.
alt.winsock is the group for discussing Winsock (but beware - many
usenauts on that group have not yet understood that Winsock is an
interface specification - they tend to think that the particular
implementation of Winsock that they are using is THE winsock, and
don't bother to tell us what it is).  There's also an IBM-PC IP
protocols FAQ that exhibits various baroque combinations of
networking stacks that different people use successfully for mixing
and matching ODI, NDIS, packet driver and/or Winsock software
interfaces.  It should be fairly easy to locate this FAQ.
 
>*extremely* useful and popular with the people around here.
 
Well they can always TELNET to the unix system, log on, and run
PINE there, can't they, until you've got your act together...
 
good luck.