Conference 44.370::system_management

> Any chance of having NMAIL installed on this machine?

> Votes or Vetos here please??        :-)

Why not all ADG machines?

My vote is *YES* :^)

Dave.

    Nmail will probably be made available after the cluster has been
    built and placed in operation. For those of you who don't know what
    nmail does, here are some basic ideas to wet your appetites:
    
(The information in this file is for INTERNAL USE ONLY.)         APR-86

TOOL NAME:  NMAIL

FUNCTION:   Store-and-forward VMS mail utility. 

VERSION:    V8.2
SYSTEM:     VMS 4.n 
LANGUAGE:   BLISS-32 
    
MORE INFO:  The kit includes: 
            	NM$INSTALL.DOC (installation and release notes) 
            	NM$UGUIDE.DOC  (user guide) 
SOURCE:     Dave Porter @SMAUG::PORTER 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION:
NMAIL provides an easy-to-use means of sending messages to other computer 
systems whether or not the destination nodes are up at the time you send 
the mail. No special software is required at the destination node, so 
NMAIL can send to anywhere that standard VMS MAIL can. 

To send mail, you run the VAX/VMS MAIL utility. Type in addresses as 
normal, except that you prefix each address with "NM%" to tell MAIL to use 
NMAIL. So, for example, to send to me you'd use the address 
"NM%SMAUG::PORTER". You can disguise this with logical names if you want. 

The NMAIL sender daemon will repeatedly attempt to send your mail until it 
is successfully delivered to all addresses. In the event of irrecoverable 
error, a report will be mailed back to you, and your mail message 
returned. 

There is a utility program which allows you to determine the status of 
unsent messages, including the reason for last failure to send, and also 
to cancel messages not yet sent. 

ADVANTAGES:   NMAIL provides function not available from plain VMS 
              mail, but still retains the ability to "talk" directly to 
              MAIL-11 servers (no special software needed at target). 
              
              Version 8 is reasonably well integrated into the standard 
              MAIL system, more so than any similar tool. 
              
              Much more efficient than any of the other tools that do 
              similar jobs (including previous versions of NMAIL). The 
              efficiency comes because NMAIL is directly executed, not a 
              DCL procedure. Also, like vanilla MAIL, only one copy of the 
              message is sent to each remote note for each attempt. 
              
              NMAIL processing is cluster-wide (in a homogeneous cluster). 
              One generic NMAIL queue feeds execution queues on any or all 
              of the available cluster VAXen. 
              
              Since NMAIL runs as a symbiont, rather than being executed 
              as a batch job, NMAIL jobs are not held up by batch work and 
              vice versa. This separation helps the system manager to 
              control NMAIL when necessary. 
              
              No special setup is required for each user: no workfiles, 
              subdirectories, logical names, or CLI symbols are needed. 

LIMITATIONS:  Under VMS V4.0 or V4.1, the CANCEL and SHOW QUEUE commands 
              don't work. 
              
              The user interface is quite different than the old NMAIL.COM
              version (NMAIL V7.0 and earlier).

OTHER:	      NMAIL V8.2 can be used from other utilities which have
	      callable MAIL support (one example is VAX NOTES). This didn't
	      always work with NMAIL V8.1.

	      A distribution list conversion tool (CONVDIS.COM) comes in the 
	      kit, to help you convert your old distribution lists to Nmail's 
	      new format (with the "NM%" prefix).

Does this support the inclusion of DECmail addressees in a 
distribution list or in calling MAIL from dcl level which vanilla MAIL 
does not allow?

eg:	dist list:		RDGE28::TLINDE
				RDGMTS::MRGATE!TONY_LINDE@RYO
				RDGMTS::MRGATE!STEVE_DRAPER@RYO
				RDGE28::DRAPER

or:	MAIL/SUBJ="frogs" FROG.MESSAGE RDGMTS::MRGATE!STEVE_DRAPER@RYO

or whatever format it wants it in.

    As far as I know - yes it does. This was a problem with earlier
    versions of NMAIL, and it was Dave Porter's intention to fix this
    problem (Dave is author/maintainer of NMAIL).
    
    However, I have not seen the latest version(s), so until we try
    it, I cannot be certain.
    
    steve
    

Hi!, just a tip I picked up the other day, if you want to use nmail now, 
you can. Just route your mail through a node which has NMAIL, you'll have 
to find those yourselves :-)

eg, a letter to EUROPE::JONES assuming ANNODE had  nmail, you would just 
send to ANNODE::NM%EUROPE::JONES

ttfn

Jerry

    Nmail normally sends you some mail (essentially your original mail)
    if it is unable to complete your request. Can it do this if you
    are bouncing into Nmail via an intermediate node??
    
    steve
    

Dunno Guv, dirty hacks like that don't usually come with guarantees  :-)

Jerry

    Sounds like a very useful piece of software to me. After all, the
    only REAL advantage of DECMAIL over VAXMAIL was the ability to keep
    trying the send until successful.
    
    Question - If there are, for example, 4 addressees and the second
    	       is 'unreachable' does NMAIL continue with the third and
               fourth before coming back to retry the  second?
    
    Your keenest VAXMAIL supporter,
    Kanga

    Answer (.8): Yes. NMAIL performs a separate "send" operation for
    each addressee on the distribution list. Thus a failure to send
    to a particular addressee in a distribution list does not hold up
    the sending of mail to subsequent addressees.
    
    Note, however, that NMAIL keeps a status log of all mail that it
    sends - with a one-line entry for each message/addressee combination.
    Thus, if you send a lot of mail using large distribution lists,
    you will soon build up a *massive* status log file. Therefore this
    file should be cleaned out regularly. (NMAIL does NOT delete entries
    from this file automatically once the mail has been successfully
    sent).
    
    steve
    

    Well, People,
    	Your wish is my command (or should I say Comand??).
    
    	We now have NMAIL version 8.2 installed on the cluster. You
    will find more info on how to use it in
    
    			SYS$HELP:NM$UGUIDE.DOC
    
    N.B. If you haven't logged out since the date/time of this note,
    you will have to do so and log in again before you can use NMAIL.
    
    Steve
    

re:- < Note 20.3 by RDGE28::TLINDE "Aussie Rules" >
>
>Does this support the inclusion of DECmail addressees in a 
>distribution list or in calling MAIL from dcl level which vanilla MAIL 
>does not allow?
>eg:	dist list:		RDGE28::TLINDE
>				RDGMTS::MRGATE!TONY_LINDE@RYO
>				RDGMTS::MRGATE!STEVE_DRAPER@RYO
>				RDGE28::DRAPER
>or:	MAIL/SUBJ="frogs" FROG.MESSAGE RDGMTS::MRGATE!STEVE_DRAPER@RYO
>or whatever format it wants it in.

    The answer is NO, it does not support this. Drat!
    
    
    Tony.