[nos-bbs] Sending mail to regular addresses via Winlink

[Glenn Thomas]

Hi all.

On 6/22/2016 9:47 AM, Michael Fox - N6MEF wrote:
> Why would you want to take an SMTP client like Thunderbird and have it send to JNOS, which would then send to Winlink, which would then send to the ultimate address?  Why not just point Thunderbird at any regular SMTP server (your own, gmail, etc.) and have it send directly to the recipient address?
The obvious use for this capability in JNOS is the case where normal
internet access is unavailable. For example, in an EOC that has lost
internet access and the desire to send/receive 3rd party traffic via
email exists. This is what Winlink was intended for and, as far as I
know, only Winlink and RMS currently do.

> Also, what you're suggesting would make JNOS an open relay.  Definitely not a good idea.  Any of your Thunderbird clients could be compromised into effectively making JNOS and Winlink into spam relays, resulting in their being placed on automated blacklists.  I'll bet the Winlink guys won't appreciate that.
Inappropriate traffic is a potential problem with any Amateur radio
based messaging system. The obvious way to handle this is to insist that
a human operator vet and release any outbound traffic that did not
originate on an Amateur frequency. That removes the fully automated
operation. It also ensures that inappropriate traffic does not go out
via JNOS.
 
> Before doing something like that, there would need to be configurable security options on the order of modern mail servers (for example, Postfix) to control which clients will be allowed to relay and which won't, who they can relay to, etc.  It would be easier and far safer to set up a regular mail server than to try to replicate those functions within JNOS.
Like I said, there are cases when normal internet access is not
available. These cases are not normal operation and a "regular mail
server" (i.e. Linux SMTP) may not be desirable, even if it is able to
deal directly with a TNC or other digital radio interface.

> Michael
> N6MEF
73 de Glenn WB6W

> Users of Winlink can send email to standard non-ham internet addresses
> via Winlink. This requires modifying the delivery address. For example,
> if sending to 'name at isp.com', the address has to be changed to
> 'smtp:name at isp.com'. If this address is sent from a regular email
> client, say, Thunderbird, the part 'smtp:name' will be sent as a quoted
> string ("smtp:name") in order to comply with rfc-822 addressing. This is
> correct behaviour. Unfortunately, if this quoted address is delivered to
> JNOS by smtp and sent to a winlink server, the address will not be
> recognized by the server and the message will be dropped. This problem
> comes about because the modified address required by winlink is NOT
> rfc-822 compliant.
>
> In order to make such an address recognized by the winlink servers, it
> would be necessary to remove the double-quotes from the address. I
> suspect that the JNOS smtp server could do that with minimal
> side-effects, since the only reasonable destination for such an address
> is a winlink server.
>
>   - Peter K2SPR

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