(Summary ) Looking for Mail servers SOFTWARE (clarification)

[Michael H. Morse]

Thanks to all who replied.  Here's the original message:

> Does anyone know where I can get a copy of the various mail
> servers?  (You send them mail, they send you a document or other
> file.)
> 
>    DECWRL server?
>    NETLIB server?
>    Multihouse research server?
>    KISS?
>    B-Server?
> 
> Any others?

For those of you who didn't see it, I've enclosed Dave Shaver's review
of the various packages.  I haven't had time to check them all out, and
some may have changed since Dave's review, but it's probably all we've
got right now.  

Many thanks to Ray Smith <rcsmith at anagld.analytics.com> who sent me copies
of DECWRL, Multihouse, and KISS.  He didn't tell me where he got them, but
if you write him he might send them to you too.

For Netlib:

> From: kim h simmons <simmons at nucst4.neep.wisc.edu>
> 
> The netlib server software is also available from netlib.
> Send mail to netlib at research.att.com i think, having as the message
>   send index


For B-Server:

>From the original author of B-server:

> From: Budi Rahardjo <rahardj at ccu.umanitoba.ca>
> 
> Try anonymous ftp to 128.186.3.15 under "servers" directory.
> 
> -- budi (I wish I have time to update my b-server)

I tried ftp, but I never could get connected!  Don't know if the
problem is at my end or theirs.  And more on B-Server:

> From: Cliff Tuel <ctuel at polyslo.calpoly.edu>
> 
> B-server was written by Budi Rahardjo, rahardj at ccu.umanitoba.ca or 
> rahard at ee.umanitoba.ca.  It's not well documented, but
> it does the job.  I totally overhauled it and gave it several new features.
> I can send you a copy if you like, but I'm not releasing it to the public
> just yet.

I hope you don't mind my making your message public Cliff (slightly
edited)!  Budi seems to indicate that b-server could use some work, and
I figure if you'd send me a copy, you might be willing to send copies
to others.

General comments:

Thanks to Ed Vielmetti who suggested using the archie server to locate
software:

> suggest that you use this:
> 
> telnet quiche.cs.mcgill.ca
> login archie
> prog netlib                   ;; this is a regexp, e.g.
> prog [Nn]et[Ll]ib
> 
> useful service (in general)

I agree with Ed that archie is useful.  However, it is somewhat slow, and
as the regular expression above indicates, you need to know exactly what
you are looking for, i.e. the actual file names of the programs.  In my
case, where I had generic names, like "Multihouse research server", it
wasn't that useful.  (But the price is right!)

Thanks again to all who replied.  Many people thought I was asking for a
list of sites providing the service, rather than the software, and I got
some amazing long lists of sites that offer either a document server like I
was looking for or anonymous ftp. That wasn't what I was looking for, but
it was interesting!

--Mike

Dave Shaver's review:

Date:    23 Apr 90 20:41:14 +0000
Subject: Summary: Mail servers: Seeking comments and source code
From:    shaver at cs.iastate.edu (Dave Shaver)

A while back I asked:

> I'm looking for source code, documentation, and user/administrator
> comments about any mail/archive servers running under UNIX.  I'm going
> to combine the best documentation and more useful features of the
> various packages into a mail server for our department.
> [...]
> I will summarize and post a follow-up to comp.mail.misc (only).

Thanks to everyone who responded to my request.  Based on your comments
and some digging of my own I've chosen an existing server as a starting
point for our server.  However, I'd still like comments from USERS of
mail servers as to what features they find most useful, confusing,
poorly documented, etc.

In all I found five servers: DECWRL server, B-Server, KISS, Multihouse
Research server, and the NETLIB server.  From this line-up I've chosen
the Multihouse Research server.  The main win for it was that it's
written in Perl.  (I'm a newly-hatched perl fanatic.)

Here are my comments on each server.  I apologize in advance if I
offend anyone, but my opinions of the servers were based on a one hour
or so look though the source code of each server.

DECWRL server

        - Written with many shell scripts and a few AWK scripts
        - Very careful about not overloading server machine
                (Remember, this used to run on an over-worked VAX.)
        - Very easy to install; best of the group?
        - Code is all quite generic
        - Good at letting person making request know what happened
                (No black holes for mail.)
        - Good user-level docs (especially the "help" file)
        - Very fair queuing system; people can't make "pigs" of themselves
        - 4 user commands: help, index, send, path

NETLIB server

        - User-level docs a bit rough.  Assumes user is quite mail savvy.
                (Not a fair assumption in my case.)
        - Catches "pigs" effectively, but no queuing system for requests.
        - Notices attempted security violations using magic shell characters
        - Install docs adequate, but not outstanding
        - Hard to install since site-specific stuff not centralized
                in a config file.
        - Has almost no interal documentation (i.e. comments)
        - Eclectic mix of shell scripts and C programs
        - Some sections of code very specific to serving libs.  Does
                not generalize well to ASCII files.

Multihouse Research server

        - Written in Perl!!!
        - Distribution under the GNU PL
        - Good at letting person making request know what happened
        - 10 user-level commands: path, limit, uuencode, btoa, send, resend, in
dex,
                help, test, end/exit.
        - Good "help" reply
        - Very extentable and easily modified
        - Code is readable; useful, plentiful comments
        - Easy to install.
        - Very good about splitting archives
        - Can resend PARTS of archives which were mangled in transport

KISS
        - Simple.  8-)
        - One shell script, plus a user-supplied program
        - No batching, quotas, or scheduling.
        - 5 user commands: help, index, send, path, quit
        - Good install docs

B-Server
        - Don't need to create system-wide alias (uses sendmail .forward file)
        - One shell script
        - Can refuse to provide service to certain people
        - Has file and request limits
        - 4 user commands: help, index, send, get

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