Subject: Re: Setting MY SMTP SERVER TO Work with PC-PINE?

From: Coenraad Bakker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 14:19:13 -0400 (EDT)

On Thu, 18 May 1995, Aladdin Khamis wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Does anybody know how to set an SMTP server in UNIX, so PC-PINE is able 
> to use it and sends and receives E-mail ?
> 
> P.s.  I looked through the FAQ for pine, but I still have some hard time 
>       doing it.
> 
> 		Any help will be appreciated
> 						Thanks

Hi,
	I saw this message in pine-info.current but no followup.  I have a
similar problem.  I can connect fine to my UNIX IMAP server from a PC and
read my mail on the UNIX server.  However, when I want to send a message,
it cannot find the SMTP server.  There seem to be confusing instructions
about whether it requires an SMTP server.  One place it says that it will
use sendmail as a default, another place it says that PC-Pine requires
SMTP.  The latter appears to be the case because if I leave "smtp-server" 
blank in the config file, it keeps asking for the SMTP server.  When I
specify the same server to which I connect to read the mail, it cannot
connect.  That UNIX system has been used for years with pine for regular
login users. It may be that the UNIX server is not propoerly set up as an
SMTP server even though there is an entry in /etc/services.  However, I
have a hard time finding information about how to set it up as an SMTP
server.  Anyone can help me with this? 

Thanks,
Coenraad Bakker

---

From: "H. Marc Kneppers" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 15:27:51 -0600

Yup, I have the same problem. I can connect via imap no problem, but I 
can't send a message. As far as I understand it, you don't need anything 
special on the PC-Pine end (gateways or anything). The UNIX smtp server 
should just pick up the connection request at port 25.

I had to fill in my own 'smtp server:' field in the pinerc file. Here it is:
smtp-server: PAMCO_UX

this is the host name of our computer (we're not on the net so I don't 
have to worry about any further domain designation, etc.)

When I try to send mail I get an error "SMTP connection went away".
The system logs show that there was a connection, and it even creates a 
directory in the /var/spool/smtpq area for the incoming connection but NO 
DATA is transferred!!

I posted before and got a little response.(still haven't got it working)

Some suggested that it was due to a faulty TCP/IP stack on the PC end of 
thing (the Novell stack wasn't great).

I also would appreciate any help getting this to work.

Marc Kneppers
[email-masked]

> it cannot find the SMTP server.  There seem to be confusing instructions
(...stuff deleted...)

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 19:59:33 -0700

> directory in the /var/spool/smtpq area for the incoming connection but NO

Here is something to try out.

Connect to your SMTP server via TELNET, and give it an RSET command.  If
the connection closes, that is probably the problem.  Also check the EHLO
command, and make sure that your SMTP server doesn't close the connection
on that.

Recently, I have been made aware of the existance of broken SMTP servers
which think that a "reset" (get to initial state, no message in progress)
means "cancel the connection".  There are also a few that think that the
right way to indicate "unknown command" is to close the connection.

Your best bet is to beat up whomever provided you with that broken SMTP
server, and/or replace it with one that correctly implements RFC-821 (such
as sendmail).

The reason why Pine's SMTP client issues a RSET command is that it is
capable of sending more than one message in a single SMTP session.  This
will be an important facility for offline operation, where you may have
several messages composed offline and then want them to be delivered.

RSET ensures that no remnants of the previous transaction affect this one.
Your corporate president would be very upset if his message to his CFO
discussing possible layoffs got distributed to the rank-and-file by
accident.  Or your girlfriend might be upset that her steamy letter to you
got posted on the net....

There is no good way to patch this out without editing the sources and
rebuilding, and even if you do you'll get hosed in the future when offline
batching comes into being.  It's better, if at all possible, to get your
SMTP server fixed.

-- Mark --

DoD #0105, R90/6 pilot, FAX: (206) 685-4045  ICBM: N 47 39'35" W 122 18'39"
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.

---

From: [email-masked] (Trey Harris)
Date: 4 Jun 1995 04:56:10 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Coenraad Bakker <[email-masked]> wrote:
>[...] I can connect fine to my UNIX IMAP server from a PC and
>SMTP.  

It may be confusing, but it is nonetheless correct.  sendmail is a mail 
transport agent which runs on Unix hosts, not PCs.  On Unix, Pine will by 
default hand email to sendmail for delivery, unless you set smtp-server 
so that Pine will attempt to make the SMTP network connection itself.  
PCs, having no sendmail to which PC-Pine can hand email, must use the 
smtp-server method only.

>The latter appears to be the case because if I leave "smtp-server" 

Sounds like the IMAP server is not running sendmail in daemon (SMTP) 
mode.  Can you telnet to port 25 on your mail server?  If you can, and 
get some version blurb, then something is wrong with your Pine setup, 
because the framework is there for this to work.

If on the other hand you get a "port unavailable", "service unavailable",
or "connection reset by peer" message, then your IMAP server is not 
running the daemon to listen to the SMTP port.

Are you your this machine's administrator?  If not, you should contact 
her; most likely she will tell you of another machine which you should 
use as an smtp server instead (assuming you're connected to the Internet, 
you *must* be running smtp *somewhere*).  If you are this machine's 
administrator, then find out where in the /etc/rc* scripts sendmail gets 
started, and make sure that the "-bd" (begin daemon) flag is present.  If 
it isn't, the smtp daemon isn't being properly spawned.

If it is, then something is killing your sendmail daemon process.  You may
want to run a periodic script via cron to make sure that all daemons,
including sendmail, are running normally. 

Hope this helps.
-- 
Trey Harris                              http://sunsite.unc.edu/harris
  System Administrator, Project Isis, Office of Information Technology
                       The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

---

From: "H. Marc Kneppers" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 11:26:29 -0600

> command, and make sure that your SMTP server doesn't close the connection

Bingo! That is exactly it. The server does not recognize the EHLO command 
- but it keeps the connection alive. The RSET command on the other hand 
causes the server to drop the connection immediately.

> server, and/or replace it with one that correctly implements RFC-821 (such
(...)

I've recently acquired and built sendmail 8.6.12 (the version that came 
with the machine is something stupid like 4.1 or something) so I think 
that I will install it as soon as possible.

The smtp daemon that we were using seems to be the vendor's one....that 
gives me a good excuse to beat up their software people (as you suggested ;)

Thanks for the help - I can finally move forward with this project!

> DoD #0105, R90/6 pilot, FAX: (206) 685-4045  ICBM: N 47 39'35" W 122 18'39"
							^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
					by the way:	Seatle? Why?
						  (I'm canadian, don't forget)

Marc Kneppers
[email-masked]