[nos-bbs] New 2.0j.3 Winlink smtp feature

[Michael E. Fox - N6MEF]

> The "smtp:" prefix *may* be used by Winlink clients to designate that the
email goes out to the SMTP world.  But, again, that's is for messges from
Winlink *TO* SMTP, as the prefix suggests.  JNOS is the REVERSE direction:
from SMTP, *TO* Winlink.  

 

It depends...    If JNOS is sending a message on Packet, to the Internet
world, via a Winlink2000 gateway - then it is acting as a Winlink Client.
Years ago, the last time I tried this, the 'smtp:' was required and the fact
that JNOS did not add it when sending out through a wl2k system was a
show-stopper.  It meant JNOS could not take advantage of the wl2k access
points as an alternate outgoing path.

 

O.K.  *THAT* is clear.  Thank you!   If JNOS is acting as a client of
Winlink, then it would need to send addresses in the format that Winlink
expects from its clients.  

 

But I guess I just don't see a real use case for that.  For example, the
JNOS webpage
(http://www.langelaar.net/projects/jnos2/documents/practical/wl2kcms2013.htm
l) shows JNOS connecting with telnet to the CMS in order to send mail to
both winlink users and other Internet users.  But in order to do that,
Internet connectivity must be available at both ends (at the CMS and at
JNOS).  And if Internet connectivity is available, it would be better to
send the messages as SMTP messages and avoid the need to use this goofy
address format altogether.  With SMTP, there's no difference between sending
to Winlink from JNOS vs. sending to Winlink from gmail or yahoo mail or any
other SMTP MTA.  In fact, the only reason I can see for establishing a
telnet forwarding session with the CMS is if your JNOS system doesn't have
an SMTP gateway.  I suppose that situation could exist.  But that sure is
doing it the hard way.  Better to set up an SMTP gateway and send SMTP
direct to all SMTP destinations (including winlink.org) than to use BBS
forwarding to send SMTP through Winlink.  Am I missing something?

 

Perhaps a more useful example would be JNOS forwarding via AX.25 packet to a
nearby RMS in order to send mail to users on the local RMS because Internet
is not available.  If the RMS doesn't have Internet access, it can't really
do anything except perhaps local delivery.  So sending to commercial
addresses through winlink wouldn't be applicable in that scenario.  And, as
I understand it, the RMS relies on the CMS to know whether a user is local
or not.  So if it can't reach the CMS, I don't know what will happen.  Does
anyone know if an RMS will perform local delivery if it loses its Internet
connection?

 

I haven't tried in some time but I believe this 'smtp:' requirement is gone.
It did seem pointless.  If there's an '@' in the address, then it's SMTP.
If no '@' - then it's a local Winlink address.

 

Yup

 

So even if JNOS needs some way to initiate a different set of handling rules
when sending to Winlink, the prefix "smtp:" would not be right.

 

On 'packet' it 'would' have been needed.   

 

> But even Winlink doesn't "require" the use of the "smtp:" prefix.  I sent
messages using Outpost connected to the CMS with telnet and they worked with
and without the "smtp:" prefix.  So, it's evidently not even a requirement
for Winlink clients!

 

I believe this is the change I'm mentioning.   There may still be different
rules for Telnet vs RF access.

 

Fair point.  I haven't tried RF client access to an RMS.

 

> Winlink DOES impose a subject line restriction (must start with "//WL2K")
but that has nothing to do with the address.

 

That is a user level convention used to reduce spam.  I don't believe that
should be programmed into an user application like JNOS.   

Agreed.

 


> Perhaps to move this forward, I'll ask this question:
> What EXACTLY does JNOS do differently if I address a message as
"smtp:user at domain" vs. just "user at domain"?

 

Wouldn't that be a no-op for JNOS.   We could use the rewrite rules to just
ignore it.   It might be useful to do that if folks were using Winlink
client with JNOS.   We need to check on the if the smtp is of any use..

 

Well, the JNOS webpage
(http://www.langelaar.net/projects/jnos2/documents/changes.txt) says "JNOS
sets up the FROM
   and MSGID mail headers to ensure Winlink delivers the email to 3rd
parties."  So I was trying to understand what those changes are.
 
Regards,
Michael
 
 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.tapr.org/pipermail/nos-bbs_lists.tapr.org/attachments/20130827/8b0b969a/attachment.html>