Re: smail

[Daniel Martin at cush <dtm12@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>]

kingalfor@inxpress.net (Dave Elliot) writes:

>   I've asked a question about mail before and got a little help.  I can now
> run fetchmail(thanks to whoever showed me how to setup .fetchmailrc).  So I
> can READ my messages.  However, I still don't know how to setup smail so I
> can send my mail.  I posted a little info about my
> connection/hostname,etc... but I think I'll do it again.  If anyone can tell
> me what to do to send mail from my system it would be greatly appreciated.
<SNIP>
Well, I once wrote a page on how I did this at
http://www.math.jhu.edu/~martind/mybox.html
However, I should point out that I've gone on to a different method
entirely once I switched from a bo system to a hamm system; I now use
exim instead of smail, and it has address rewriting (which is the main 
thing that needs to happen as mail goes from your machine to the
outside world) built in.  As I saw someone else put it, "the smail
author has gone insane" - the latest smail that hamm uses has features 
which cannot be disabled that make it unusable for a dialup system.
Though the bo smail can work with a dialup system using the method I
describe in that web page, it's probably better to use exim.

(If you want an example exim.conf for a dialup system, I can send you
mine)

> Here's the basic info...
> 
> hostname:castle-of-lions  (thanks to whoever told me to use '-' instead of '_')
> mail server:mail.inxpress.net (it also might be ns1.inxpress.net)
> username:kingalfor
> 
> A couple questions.  When I tried setting it up to use my ISP's mail server,
> it tried using my castle-of-lions hostname, and then said 'no fqdn name
> found'(or something to that effect) Is that because it's trying to use my
> computer as the server?  Also, since my net username is kingalfor, do I have
> to have a user like that on my computer?

Not at all.  Your .fetchmailrc should have something like:
   user kingalfor with password xxxxxxx is alfor here
after it the "poll" line.  But since you've already gotten fetchmail
working, you knew that.  Any of my examples will do - I've got the
username martind on my machine, and "dtm12" on my ISP's mail machine.

<SNIP>
> OK, one last question kind of pertaining to this...
> I'm using tin to read news, and I'd like to post messages, however, it
> automatically starts vi.  Is there a way I can get it to use a different
> editor?  I got elm to use edit instead of vi.  I would think you could
> configure tin to use something else.  I know vi is powerful, but call me
> wuss... I really don't want to learn it.  I've seen something about a
> command like EDITOR='editor_name'.  I forgot where I read about it, but it
> made it sounds as if that will set up a default editor so that programs call
> that one instead of vi or what have you.  If I'm wrong about this, could you
> tell me what this does, and how to use it?

the command is:
EDITOR=/my/editor/here
export EDITOR
(or, more succinctly 'export EDITOR=/my/editor/here') - this command
sets the EDITOR environment variable, which most programs (and all
debian programs that are obeying policy) which invoke an editor will
look at before invoking an EDITOR.

These commands need to either be typed each time before you start tin
or placed in your ~/.bash_profile and ~/.bashrc.

A few programs may want to use the VISUAL environment variable if
that's set.  If setting EDITOR as above doesn't make tin behave, try
a:
unset VISUAL
and then try tin again.  If this works, put the unset command in your
~/.bash_profile and ~/.bashrc.


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