Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.cs.indiana.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) Newsgroups: comp.mail.mh Subject: Re: Problems with whatnow/send Message-ID: <1991Jan28.182047.16421@mp.cs.niu.edu> Date: 28 Jan 91 18:20:47 GMT References: <5740009@hpscdc.scd.hp.com> <27A451FD.10013@ics.uci.edu> Organization: Northern Illinois University Lines: 30 In article <27A451FD.10013@ics.uci.edu> jromine@ics.uci.edu (John Romine) writes: >schmitz@hpscdc.scd.hp.com (John Schmitz) writes: >>It seems to me that unix really relies on being able to use mail. All >>sorts of programs have built in calls to mail (vi, cron, etc.) and it >>would be difficult to administer systems without having an MTA. > >The easiest solution I know of, is to replace /bin/mail with a link >to "mhmail". At least in BSD systems, /bin/mail has the following properties: 1. It will deliver mail to a user's mailbox. It is used in this way by sendmail to achieve final mail delivery. 2. It supports 'biff' processing when delivering mail to a mailbox. 3. It will accept mail already containing headers. In fact it does not ever create its own headers - it leaves that the the MTA. The last time I checked, either the man pages for mhmail were totally wrong, or else it does not support these functions. Making /bin/mail a link to mhmail will very likely cause a major disaster in the mail system. On the other hand, making /usr/ucb/Mail (or equivalent MUA) a link to mhmail would more or less work. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940