Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!ucbvax!pasteur!agate!tornado.Berkeley.EDU!dankg
From: dankg@tornado.Berkeley.EDU (Dan KoGai)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: REVISED:  How do I send e-mail to lots of users at a remote unix site?
Summary: Don't do that, please
Message-ID: <1990Jun4.115407.14502@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 4 Jun 90 11:54:07 GMT
References: <900531093335.30e0f102@Csa2.LBL.Gov>
Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator;;;;ZU44)
Reply-To: dankg@tornado.Berkeley.EDU (Dan KoGai)
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Lines: 42

In article <900531093335.30e0f102@Csa2.LBL.Gov> thermal%solgel.hepnet@CSA2.LBL.GOV writes:
>
>I would like to be able to send a mail message to all the users on
>ANOTHER unix machine via Internet.  Of course, I could do it the long
>and tedious way, that is, by sending a mail message to each user, one
>at a time.  Is there a quicker way? (it seems to me there could be two
>or three different ways, such as setting up a mailing list file on my
>machine which will automatically mail the message to all on the list,
>or sending one message to the remote machine and somehow instruct it
>to distribute the message to all the users).  Obviously, I'm not a
>unix guru or wizard, so make your explanation understandable, please.
>

	In my last followup, I said "you'd better not do that" and that time
I was assuming you just wanted to batchmail locally.  Now you are asking
for doing it remotely.
	I say "don't do it!"  Batchmail in local site alone is anti-social
enough.  Batch-remote mail sounds as guily as a crime:  It would end up with
clogging network.  One day I posted same article to another newsgroup
(How secure is UNIX?) because I forgot to crosspost and got a dozen mails
criticizing that.  My mistake is nothing compared to what you are tring to
do.
	And to make matters worse, it could be as easy as the case of local
batchmailing:  The only thing you need is list of address and there are
many ways to do that:  I don't think you can get remote list unless you have
the remote account and read access to /etc/passwd or yp but still this can
be resolved if you have a friend in remote site and have her/him mail the
list to you.
	The only thing we can depend on net traffic is conscience of each users
so far.  I can't criticize you because I am not 100% innocent but the fact
remains.
	Plus why do you need it?  We already have netnews if you need to
broadcast something.  Please don't abuse e-mails.

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