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.