Xref: utzoo comp.sources.wanted:5176 comp.mail.misc:1284
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!reading!bru-cc!andrew
From: andrew@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Andrew Findlay)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.wanted,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: central mail server
Keywords: mail
Message-ID: <464@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk>
Date: 28 Sep 88 18:31:48 GMT
References: <363@asuvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: Andrew.Findlay@brunel.ac.uk (Andrew Findlay)
Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
Lines: 29

In article <363@asuvax.UUCP> system@asuvax.UUCP (Marc Lesure) writes:
>We want to develop a mail system server which will receive and store mail
>from remote systems.  Users will be able to send, read, query their mail
>from any machine (regardless of OS) from a single point.  Since most users
>here have 3-4 accounts on different machines, this will avoid having to 
>check each system for mail.  So we don't reinvent the wheel, is such a
>system already available?

Look at POP (Post Office Protocol), distributed as part of the MH Mail
Handler and also used in other things (such as Sun's Lifeline Mail for
PCs running PCNFS).

Before starting a major project you should also think about the implications
of X.400. This has the concept of a `message store' such as you propose.

At Brunel we have a partial solution to the problem you describe:
All networked machines use NFS so users only have a single home directory
however many machines they might use. We put the mailbox in the home
directory, so it is visible on all machines. Our case is perhaps simpler
than most, as we only have to worry about Unix machines and PCs.

Andrew

-- 

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