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.