Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU!LEICHTER From: LEICHTER@VENUS.YCC.YALE.EDU ("Jerry Leichter ", LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU) Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Subject: Re: Press Release (PMDF and ALL-IN-1) Message-ID: <8808022007.AA10088@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> Date: 27 Jul 88 16:30:00 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 99 By an interesting coincidence, just after writing my previous message, I came across the following message in the PMFD mailing list. -- Jerry NEWS-Posting: Newsgroup , Item <#406>, Subject Received: from JNET-DAEMON by Venus.YCC.Yale.Edu; Wed, 27 Jul 88 04:34 EST Received: From YMIR(NED) by YALEVMS with Jnet id 7462 for PMDF@YALEVMS; Wed, 27 Jul 88 04:34 EST Date: Wed, 27 Jul 88 00:40 PDT From: Ned Freed Subject: Re: Capabilities of PMDF? To: info-pmdf@YMIR.BITNET, vms-pmdf@relay.cs.net X-VMS-To: IPMDF,VPMDF Resent-date: Wed, 27 Jul 88 00:42 PDT Resent-to: INFO-PMDF-LIST@YMIR.BITNET Path: venus!newsmgr Newsgroups: mail.pmdf Approved: newsmgr@venus.ycc.yale.edu Message-ID: <880727044752.0000380C@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Lau Kai Cheong writes: > Hi! I was told by Ned to send my queries here and hope that > experienced PMDF users out there can help me answer these > questions. > We recently began using Jnet and Gmail. We interface Jnet with > All-in-1 to send mail to bitnet nodes. To reach nodes on other > non-bitnet nodes, we have to rely on Gmail. I have heard about > PMDF which seems to me offer a better interface to VMS. > 1. I was told by Ned that PMDF interfaces to VMS mail directly. > One can reply to a PMDF message in VMS mail by using the REPLY > command in VMS mail directly. Well, presently without PMDF we > are also able to do that, but only for replying to mail form > bitnet nodes. If the reply is to a mail from non-bitnet nodes, > we have to specifically invoke Gmail to do that. So my question > is, can PMDF handle replies to non-bitnet nodes using VMS REPLY > command? Yes, you can reply to both BITNET and non-BITNET messages with PMDF. > 2. > (i) This question is more for users who have used PMDF with > All-in-1. Can we send mail to both bitnet and non-bitnet nodes > using All-in-1? We are using All-in-1 for messaging. Presently > Jnet's interface with All-in-1 only recognise bitnet addresses. > It will tell you that it does not recognise an ARPANET > address,for eg. if you send a mail via All-in-1 to a node on > ARPANET. Since All-in-1 mail ultimately goes to VMS, is there an > interface between PMDF and All-in-1 so that it is able to > recognise ARPANET's addressing scheme and sent it correctly? To > overcome the above problem, we now send mail to bitnet nodes > using All-in-1 and to send mail to non-bitnet nodes, we have to > get to VMS and invoke Gmail to send, which you will agree is not > neat at all. > (ii) If there is an interface between PMDF and All-in-1, can we > use All-in-1's answer feature to reply to a mail? Right now, > Jnet does not allow that, so we have to create a new mail > everytime to reply to a mail. This applies to replies to mail > from bitnet and non-bitnet nodes. The only problem with using All-in-1 with PMDF is that All-in-1 has some funny restrictions on address formats that cause it to have problems with PMDF addresses. This issue has been discussed at some length on the info-pmdf list in the past, and the solution appears to be to make a simple modification to one of the .COM files in All-in-1. I do not run All-in-1 here so I cannot vouch for this, but several sites have reported that it works fine. The archives of info-pmdf messages are included in the PMDF distribution, so you can go back and track down all the details of the discussion if you want to. > (iii) Has anybody installed Jnet, TCP/IP and PMDF on a VAX > system before? If so, have they configured the TCP mailer to > allow bitnet mail to be rerouted from the VAX to a SUN > automatically? This is done all the time. We do it here with a variety of hosts, including a SUN. > We would definitely switch to PMDF if these needs can be met or > would consider if there are any other benefits that could be > gained from doing so. The advantage of using GMAIL is that it is quite simple to install and maintain. In a situation where you have a single, isolated VAX that just communicates via JNET to BITNET and has no system management to speak of, GMAIL may be a big win. PMDF is not so easy to install, since it is quite general-purpose and not specialized as a BITNET mailer for VAXes. You have to pay some attention to how it is set up and you should take some time periodically to update its configuration file. But if you have more than one network to deal with, PMDF is worth it since it provides the facilities to route messages among any number of networks. Ned