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NAME

       ifmail - Convert RFC-822 and RFC-1036 mail/news to FTN Fidonet packets.

       ifnews - Convert RFC-1036 Usenet news to FTN Fidonet packets.

Synopsis

       ifmail [-h]  [-x verbosity]  [-I file]  [-n]  [-r Address]  [-g  grade]
       receipent ...

       ifnews  [-h]   [-x  verbosity]   [-I  file]   [-r  Address]  [-g grade]
       [receipent]

Description

       Ifmail converts RFC-822 compliant mail and RFC-1036 compliant  news  to
       FTN  packets.  It  must run setuid owner of fidonet related stuff.  The
       current packet naming is  BinkleyTerm,  with  file/directory  names  in
       lowcase.  Naming conventions are implemented in a separate source file,
       pktname.c, to make modifications easier.

       The default mode is the mail mode of operation. In mail mode, you  must
       specify recepient address(es) on the command line, in the form:
       "Eugene.Crosser@p14.f6.n5020.z2.fidonet.org".

       The  first  recepient  address  is  used  as the routing address, if no
       routing  address  is  specified.   In  news  mode  then  the  $NEWSSITE
       environment variable is used as the routing address.

       When  the  news  mode  is in effect, (i.e. "-n" key is specified or the
       program is called by alias "ifnews")  a  news  article  (or  batch)  is
       expected on stdin.

       Ifmail  will  try  to  preserve  as much information as possible in "X-
       FTN-..." headers and "^ARFC-..." kludges, and restore messages more  or
       less accurately to their original form when double-gatewaying.

       A  dbm-based alias database is supported, so if a message passes from a
       newsgroup to an echo, the author’s free form name  and  domain  address
       are  stored,  and  when a netmail reply comes from fidonet to that free
       form name, it is passed as a mail  message  to  the  remembered  domain
       address.

       ATTENTION:  This  mechanism  will not work if you specify fidonet-style
       address as the "visible name"  in  your  MTA.   However  you  can  edit
       /etc/aliases  to add lines of the pattern: John.Smith:    jsmith Or you
       can set GECOS matching in sendmail.cf (OGTrue)

       Several addresses may be specified in the  config  file,  netmail  from
       fidonet  addressed  to  any  of  those  addresses  is assumed local and
       resolved through the aforementioned database, otherwise the  mail  will
       be  routed  through the normal MTA (and presumably packed to some other
       fidonet node). If there is a "To:" line at the beginning  of  the  fido
       message, the address is taken from it (ONLY THE FIRST ADDRESS!).

       When an RFC message is split, unique MSGIDs are generated for all parts
       after the first one. In any case, the original "Message-ID:" header  is
       preserved  in  the  "^ARFC-Message-ID:"  kludge and used if the message
       comes back to usenet on some (other) gateway.

       On the way from news to echo, if the node to which the packet is  being
       created  is  present  in an "X-FTN-SEEN-BY:" header, the message is not
       included in the packet. SEEN-BY lines in the messages included into the
       packet  consist  of  (1) your node primary address, (2) copy of "X-FTN-
       SEEN-BY:" header(s), (3) ftn addresses that could be  parsed  from  the
       CNews  file  "$NEWSCTL/log" in the line with the corresponding Message-
       ID. For the latter to work, you should have a Cnews compatible log file
       available  for  reading and have an "ndbm" package. This works with INN
       too.

       ATTENTION: your feed name in the cnews "sys" file should  be  fNNN.nMMM
       or  pNNN.fMMM.nLLL,  without zone and domain, see the examples included
       with the source distribution.

       In some cases, though, you will need to specify zone and/or  domain  of
       the  feed,  e.g. if you are exporting echomail to several networks.  In
       such case, specify the "cutdown" fNNN.nMMM notation after the slash, to
       prevent  exporting  back  (Refer  the  your news systems manual).  This
       trick may also be useful if your hub presents non-primary  AKA  in  the
       echomail it gives you.

       Ifmail  does  make  some  attempt  to  process  file attaches, but only
       locally.  Not passing to the Internet and back,  but  if  a  fileattach
       netmail message is routed from one fidonet node to another, it probably
       will take the attached file with it.

       There is also a feature to  define  "forbidden"  groups.  If  a  usenet
       message is crossposted to some of the gated groups _and_ to some of the
       forbidden groups it will not be passed to any fidonet echoes.  Messages
       with "Control:" headers are also not passed to FidoNet.

OPTIONS

       -h      Display a short help message.

       -x  verbosity       Set  the  debug verbosity verbosity may be a number
       from 0 to 32 to set ’on’ bits from 1 to number, or a string of  letters
       where ’a’ = bit 1, ’b’ = bit 2, etc. up to bit 26.

       -N      Put resultant packets to /tmp/ifmail.

       -I File      Use the alternate configuration file File.

       -n       Set  news mode for processing RFC-1036 Usenet news rather than
       RFC-822 electronic mail.

       -s      Set secure mode: this enables  ifmail  to  check  the  nodelist
       before  gating  the  message  from RFC-822 electronic mail to FTN-style
       netmail.

       -r Address      Route packets to the Fidonet address Address.   Address
       should be in the format "[pNN.]fNN.nNN[.zNN[.domain]]".

       -g Grade      Set the type of Fidonet packet to create.  Where Grade is
       one of:
            N = Normal (Default)
            C = Crash
            H = Hold

       -c Charset      Forces the use of the given Charset, it is useful  when
       you know that a given link can only handle one charset for its incoming
       mail. This switch override all the charset handling done internally. It
       needs -DDIRTY_CHRS at compile time to be active.

       -l  Level       Sets  the Level for ^aRFC- kludges. If not set 1 is the
       default.  it determines the amount of info from  rfc  headers  that  is
       kept when gating.
            -1: really nothing is gated, not recommended at all !
            0:  only  intended  for points or end-leaf nodes that have only an
       FTN link
            1: normal level inteded for normal gateways and nodes (points)
            2:  keeps  almost  everything,  including  lots  of  non  relevant
       headers.
            3: hey! same as 2 but in plain text, no ^aRFC- kludge is used.

       I  recommend  you  to  leave the default value of 1 if you don’t really
       know what you are doing.

       -b      Don’t split the messages when writting to PKT. Use this  option
       only if you know your partner uses a tosser that can handle messages of
       arbitrary size (or at least 64KB big). Note that strict  compliance  to
       fidonet standards imply handling messages of arbitrary size.

FILES

       $IFLIBDIR/config      Runtime configuration file.

SEE ALSO

       ifcico(8), ifpack(8), ifunpack(8), iftoss(8)

Acknowledgements

       Some  ideas  taken from Fidogate/RFmail package, written by Teemu Torma
       and hacked by Martin Junius.  Some modeules  taken  from  INN  package.
       Thanks  to Michael Bravo <mbravo@tctube.spb.su> (who was the first) and
       many others for testing.

       1993, 1994 Eugene Crosser

       This is free software. You can do what you wish with it as long as this
       copyright notice is preserved.