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From: gds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Standardising the "postmaster" concept
Message-ID: <5307@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 22:40:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.5307
Posted: Fri Sep 13 22:40:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 17:36:28 EDT
References: <426@mungunni.OZ> <10298@ucbvax.ARPA>
Organization: MIT Lusers and Hosers Inc., Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 35

> From: fair@ucbvax.ARPA (Erik E. Fair)

> Unfortunately for this idea, all of the versions of UNIX, other than
> the ones that come from Berkeley (2 & 4 BSD), have the most bletcherous
> mailers that it would ever be your misfortune to encounter, which,
> without exception, do not support the concept of an `alias' (e.g.
> ucbvax!usenet, ucbvax!erik, and a few other things, can all point to
> ucbvax!fair, without existing as entries in /etc/passwd).

Ahem.

In Unix System V, /bin/mail allows aliasing without passwd entries by
placing in /usr/mail/user the line 

Forward to path!someone

so that mail addressed to "usenet" can be forwarded to someone who can
answer the questions.  Unfortunately, it can't expand to more than one
address. 

> So until AT&T and its imitators discover what *real* electronic mailing
> systems are like (and what they do), we're stuck with the world as it is...

Some machines in AT&T have sendmails running -- typically they're on the
Datakit network.

Don't malign AT&T mailers too much, they're not totally losing.

One other thing, mailx(1) is a user agent, not a mailer.
-- 
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under.

Greg Skinner (gregbo)
{decvax!genrad, allegra, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds
gds@mit-eddie.mit.edu