[IRCServices] About new Version...

[Jonathan Morton]

>I'm not an expert in mail transport, but don't many applications use
>sendmail because it's easy and RFC compliant? It's seems to me that every
>app/script I have ever seen that has any form of mail option uses sendmail
>or has an SMTP server option. Especially since sendmail is a SMTP server.
>
>I personally would not like to see services act as an SMTP server in any
>since of the word. The use of Sendmail is very common place, and for those
>that do not or can not use sendmail to have an SMTP server option plus the
>option to NOT use the mail and use the GETPASS command, should be defined in
>the conf or an ifdef in ./configure.

My suggestion was to make Services act as an SMTP _client_ not a server.  This is extremely easy to implement.  All MTAs are SMTP servers which can talk to each other, and SMTP clients can talk to them very easily.  Example session:

>>> 220 helium.chromatix.org.uk ESMTP Exim 3.15 #2 Mon, 17 Jul 2000 15:02:02 +0100
<<< HELO irc.network.org
>>> 250 helium.chromatix.org.uk Hello dolphin.chromatix.org.uk [10.38.239.105]
<<< MAIL FROM: services at irc.network.org
>>> 250 <services at irc.network.org> is syntactically correct
<<< RCPT TO: chromi at cyberspace.org
>>> 250 <chromi at cyberspace.org> is syntactically correct
<<< DATA
>>> 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
<<< Subject: Your password
<<<
<<< Your password was requested by use of the SENDPASSWORD command.  Here it is.
<<<
<<< >>>>  yourpassword  <<<<
<<< .
>>> 250 OK id=13EBVF-0001vi-00
<<< quit
>>> 221 Bye-bye!

... where >>> precedes a line sent by the server, and <<< precedes one sent by the client.  Note the blank line separating the Subject: header from the message body.  Completely RFC compliant and easy to implement.  Also notice my MTA (in the 'greeting' line) is not Sendmail, but another popular alternative called Exim.  No problem if the mail-sending routines are implemented in "SMTP client" form but a potential PITA [pain in the a**] if you wanted to use command-line sending.  Obviously some error-handling must be built in (500-series numbers in particular mean a rejected delivery) but this is pretty trivial.

--------------------------------------------------------------
from:     Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton
mail:     chromi at cyberspace.org  (not for attachments)
uni-mail: j.d.morton at lancaster.ac.uk

The key to knowledge is not to rely on people to teach you it.

Get VNC Server for Macintosh from http://chromatix.autistics.org/vnc/

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