NAME

       snmail - mail-to-news filter

SYNOPSIS

       snmail [-sP] [listname [prefix]]

DESCRIPTION

       snmail reads a single email message on standard input, and writes the converted message to
       standard output.  This output is suitable for feeding to snstore.

       snmail does these conversions: If the first line is a UUCP  From_  line,  it  is  silently
       discarded;  a  Newsgroups:  line  is  added  with  the  value  of  prefixlistname  (prefix
       concatenated with listname), and other existing Newsgroups: lines are removed; and a Path:
       line  is  created  from  all  Received:  lines,  which  are  removed; all header lines are
       unfolded; if no message ID exists, one is created; message IDs in  all  References:  lines
       and  In-Reply-To:  lines  are  collected  into  a  single  References: line; all lines are
       rewritten to end in CRLF; and a lone .  on a line is written at the end of the message.

       snmail will accept and pass on messages with invalid header fields.

       snmail is meant to be run from a .forward  or  the  /etc/aliases  file  (if  you're  using
       sendmail  or  similar)  or  from  a .qmail file (if you're using qmail).  snmail may write
       status or error messages to standard error.

OPTIONS

       -s     Pipe output to snstore directly, do not write to standard output.  This is  so  the
              exit  status  is  not lost in a shell pipeline.  If you use this flag, it is also a
              good idea to also use -c (tell snstore to check if article already exists).

       Other options
              snmail also accepts options intended for snstore, viz.  -c, -v, and -n,  and  these
              are passed on uninterpreted.

ARGUMENTS

       prefix is  the prefix of the newsgroup; if not specified, it defaults to local.  (note the
              trailing .).  prefix may not begin with a .  (dot) but it may be empty.

       listname
              completes the newsgroup name; if not specified, it is the local part of the address
              in  the  Return-Path:  line if it exists and isn't empty; otherwise it is the local
              part of the messages' first From:.  So if the  message  originated  from  the  list
              <linux-lemmings@vger.rutgers.edu>,  then the default newsgroup becomes local.linux-
              lemmings.  listname may be empty if prefix isn't.

              You may want to have a file /var/spool/sn/prefixlistname/.nopost  to  deny  posting
              from all and sundry, to prevent the mailing list newsgroup from being contaminated.

              prefix  and listname may contain uppercase characters; these are converted to lower
              case.

USAGE

       There are two ways of forwarding mail to the sn news spool: directly from  a  user's  mail
       address;  or forwarded to a central address and then invoking snmail.  The central concern
       here is permissions; while anyone can run snmail, not  everyone  may  store  mail  in  the
       spool.  Mail setups vary a lot, so basically you're on your own here.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       SNROOT If  this  is set and is not empty, the value is used in place of /var/spool/sn, the
              default news spool directory.

       PATH   If -s was specified, determines where  to  look  for  snstore,  before  looking  in
              /usr/sbin.

EXIT STATUS

       snmail exits 0 if the message was successfully converted and written, or if the message ID
       already exists in the ID database and the message was not stored or converted.

       snmail exits with 1 on usage error, 2 on operational error, 3 if the mail  message  wasn't
       in the proper format.