Xref: utzoo comp.mail.elm:2766 alt.bbs:2283 comp.mail.sendmail:1761
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!limbo!taylor
From: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm,alt.bbs,comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: Mail to/from a BBS (one login, many users)
Message-ID: <923@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 29 Jun 90 23:34:32 GMT
References: <1990Jun29.074034.12656@actrix.co.nz>
Reply-To: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor)
Followup-To: comp.mail.elm
Organization: Intuitive Systems, Mountain View, CA: +1 (415) 966-1151
Lines: 44

Paul Gillingwater asks about a few things related to having Elm and
email within a single 'bbs' user account...

My first question, Paul, is does XBBS work where you log in to the
system (as 'bbs') then have to log in separately to the BBS system?
That is, does it have its own "password" style file?  If so, does
it assign unique id numbers for each user?

If it does, then what I would recommend is:

- Use the id number as the name of their mailbox & home directory

- Hack into the sendmail to add a special case at the end of all
  the regular delivery stuff, just before it's about to bounce the 
  message, to call your own delivery program.

- That delivery program would then look up the name in the XBBS password 
  file, and if valid, deliver it to the mailbox based on id number.  If 
  not, it could do some minimal spelling correction checks and such, and 
  if still not deliverable, bounce the message with a friendly error msg 
  like "the user you specified isn't known to this BBS system.  Please try 
  using a different name or different spelling of this name.  If you
  think they should be able to receive mail this way, please forward this 
  entire message to postmaster@bbs.actrix.co.nz".

By the same token, you could move people into specific subdirectories
as their "home" directory using the same name -> user id mapping.

What kind of system are you running that you're hitting the old System V
14 character limit on filenames?  A Xenix-type OS?  With HP's HP-UX, at
least, you can reconfigure your disk to have long Berkeley-style names..

Finally, for mail going out, simply define a new program that Elm
drops its outbound mail into (instead of sendmail).  That program could
simply grab the users id value, map it into a name, then write an
appropriate From: line and hand the message straight to sendmail!

	Good luck!

						-- Dave Taylor
Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California

taylor@limbo.intuitive.com    or   {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor