Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!lll-lcc!lll-crg!hoptoad!gnu
From: gnu@hoptoad.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Multiple recipient arguments to rmail
Message-ID: <1779@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Mon, 9-Feb-87 22:25:49 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1779
Posted: Mon Feb  9 22:25:49 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Feb-87 05:34:26 EST
References: <136@lmi-angel.UUCP>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 31
Keywords: rmail, sendmail

In article <136@lmi-angel.UUCP>, rpk@lmi-angel.UUCP (Bob Krajewski) writes:
> The rmail used for UUCP mail seems to want the same arguments as the
> standard mail program, which most importantly means a list of addresses to
> send to and not just one.  Our 4.2 sendmail thinks that rmail can take just
> one address at a time (in the mailer definition uucpm).  Is this an
> oversight or are there other rmails out there which only take one address ?

The definitive answer to this is:  the 4.1BSD rmail program would only
take one address.  Mark Horton wrote it and he's the one who told me.

In older Unix systems, rmail was just a link to mail, so multiple addresses
worked.  In newer systems there is a newer rmail that handles multiple
addresses.  I know of no other systems with the one-recipient problem.

The real problem with turning on the "multiple recipients" bit in the
sendmail uucp mailer description is that there is no limit to the number of
recipients it will put on a line.  If somebody ever sets up a mailing
list on your system, it will try to send to dozens or hundreds of
addresses, and probably drop mail by overflowing a command buffer
inside uux.  Because of this, I implemented an "L=nnn" flag on the
mailer description which specified a maximum command length.  This
change is in the 4.3BSD and Sun sendmails.  I use L=250 and have had
no trouble so far.

This change is worth making because you'll only send one copy of a message
rather than N copies.  This is especially useful on long-distance links.
-- 
John Gilmore  {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu   gnu@ingres.berkeley.edu
Love your country but never trust its government.
		     -- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvania
(terrorist, cryptography, DES, drugs, cipher, secret, decode, NSA, CIA, NRO.)