Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!hc!lll-winken!uunet!ateng!chip
From: chip@ateng.ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: aliasing everyone within an organization
Message-ID: <1989Mar21.173204.865@ateng.ateng.com>
Date: 21 Mar 89 22:32:03 GMT
References: <3498@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Organization: A T Engineering, Tampa, FL
Lines: 59

According to bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham):
>I'm implementing, for an organization of several hundred people, a
>scheme where everyone can potentially receive e-mail via standardized
>aliases [...] even if they don't have a current e-mail address)
>using individual's first initial and last name.

I think my "deliver" program (currently at patchlevel eight) might provide
part of the solution to this problem.  It works with BSD or USG Unix, and it
provides the ability to execute arbitrary commands to control delivery of
incoming mail.  Be sure you have Smail, though.

For example, for those users who don't have accounts, you can have deliver
print the message instead of doing normal delivery.  Assuming the existance
of a text file "del.aliases" that looks like this:

	bcunningham     rc@foo
	dicknixon       [print]
	rcunningham     rc@foo
	richardnixon    [print]

(Be sure it's sorted.)

Then you can use a system delivery script like this:

	for u
	do
	    # Look up the given name
	    n=`look "$u " del.aliases | awk '{ print $2 }'`

	    # Take action based on result of lookup
	    case "$n" in
	    *@*@*)  echo $n ;;
	    *@*)    n1=`expr $n : '\(.*\)@.*'`
		    n2=`expr $n : '.*@\(.*\)'`
		    if [ $n2 = `uuname -l` ]
		    then
			# Local user
			echo $n1
		    else
			# Remote user
			cat $HEADER $BODY | rmail $n ;;
		    fi
		    ;;
	    [print]) cat $HEADER $BODY | lpr
		    ;;
	    *)      echo $u
		    ;;
	    esac
	done

This does the obvious thing, i.e. print those with entries that say
"[print]".

This script would be *much* clearer in Perl, but since not all systems have
Perl, I can't just assume it's available.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg             <chip@ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip>
A T Engineering             Me?  Speak for my company?  Surely you jest!
	  "It's no good.  They're tapping the lines."