Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!nosun!sns4.fpssun.fps.com!mbn
From: mbn@fpssun.fps.com (Mike Northam ext 2651)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: Signature files (LONG)
Keywords: smail pathalias
Message-ID: <556@sns4.fpssun.fps.com>
Date: 25 Aug 89 04:08:52 GMT
References: <15046@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <549@buster.UUCP> <2689@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> <2182@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu> <30744@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1989Aug19.063337.13750@xenitec.uucp> <30759@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1989Aug22.055921.23264@xenitec.uucp>
Reply-To: mbn@fpssun.fps.com (Mike Northam ext 2651)
Distribution: na
Organization: FPS Computing, Beaverton,OR
Lines: 41

In article <1989Aug22.055921.23264@xenitec.uucp> edhew@xenitec.UUCP (Ed Hew) writes:
| In article <30759@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> wisner@mica.Berkeley.EDU (Bill Wisner) writes:
| >to send mail to some random site in Outer Boondocks, Nebraska, because you're
| >too lazy to figure out how to get the mail there yourself. Such behavior is
| >frowned upon.
| >
| >I would rather trust mail routing to my pathalias and your map entry than to
| >one arbitrary route given in your signature.
| 
| ....and while we're handing out gratuitous advice...	:-)
| 
| We've found life on this site much easier when trying to contact the
| "known" world since someone ported and installed a smart mailer (smail)
| acting on a pathalias paths file.
| 
| Both these sources ('smail' and 'pathalias') are available from many
| archives sites which are listed in several newsgroups (a list of which
| can be periodically found in news.announce.newusers).
| 
[some stuff deleted, including .sig's :-)]

I hate to keep ringing the same bell, but it's not intuitively obvious for
those of us without access to a fulltime sysadmin, _nor_ man pages
(man rn does nothing here) how to do this.  I'd be perfectly willing to
help out our overburdened parttime sysadmin and get an up to date 'paths'
file, or otherwise run pathalias.  As another poster stated, I'm familiar
with comp.mail.maps and such, but don't really know how to use that
information; I've seen continual references to the 'pathalias' program
(without finding it anywhere on our local system).  BUT, is there a
manual or other source of information on how this is all put together?

Maybe someone would be kind enough to send me email or post a general
hint about this--at least where to look to RTFM, which I'm quite
capable of doing.


-- 
Mike Northam             mbn@fpssun.fps.com          Home:123 13'W   45 37.5'N
(503) 641-3151 x2651     {tektronix}!nosun!fpssun!mbn
*FPS Computing has a company spokesperson, and it's certainly not me*
No one knows how old a chicken gets---they never die of old age.