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Annotation of researchv10no/cmd/upas/questions, revision 1.1.1.1

1.1       root        1: how much time would it take to do this?
                      2: 
                      3: I can usually get the software up in about ten minutes (FLW).  The
                      4: rewrite and routing files take an hour or two of deep thought
                      5: and easy work.  I am willing to work with someone to accomplish this.
                      6: 
                      7: does upas run on any bsd vax system already, or would
                      8: we have to port it?
                      9: 
                     10: It used to run on arpa, a 4.3 bsd machine.  It hasn't been run on
                     11: one for over a year that I know of.  On the other hand, it Just Works
                     12: on suns, MIPS, and SGI machines.
                     13: 
                     14: does it run on any bsd-based systems where /bin/sh
                     15: is the bourne shell (i.e. doesn't put background
                     16: jobs into their own pgrp, meaning that all a
                     17: user's background jobs may get signal 1 when s/he logs
                     18: out)?
                     19: 
                     20: I'm not sure this is a factor.  In any case, I always use the
                     21: Bourne shell on all upas systems that I manage.
                     22: 
                     23: what programs need to be replaced?  mail, rmail, Mail?
                     24: 
                     25: The crucial program is /bin/rmail (linked to) /usr/lib/upas/send.  This
                     26: is the transfer agent.  You can install our minimalist V7 mail reader
                     27: as /bin/mail (as on many machines), use mailx supported by someone
                     28: else in our center, or (I guess) use any mail reading program that
                     29: delivers mail to /bin/rmail.
                     30: 
                     31: does it create mail files that can be read by
                     32: /usr/ucb/Mail (the From lines must be preceded by
                     33: blanks and the date/time portion has to be one of
                     34: a few specific formats)?
                     35: 
                     36: I don't know.  Feel free to test it on alice.
                     37: 
                     38: does it collapse multiple remote from xxx lines
                     39: into a single address so that users can type 'r'
                     40: in their favorite mail-reading program (mail, Mail, mailtool, mh,
                     41: emacs) and have the reply go to the right place?
                     42: 
                     43: This is a sticky one.  It derives the "From " address from the
                     44: envelope or an RFC-specified series of header lines.  You would definitely
                     45: want to check it out before taking the plunge.
                     46: 
                     47: does it support hashed aliases?  if not,
                     48: i think it might be too slow on allegra or andante.
                     49: 
                     50: Aliases are looked up by a filter called `translate'.  The upas
                     51: version is dirt-simple, and gives a performance hit on machines
                     52: like 750s.  You can easily roll your own (look(1) is a big win) to do
                     53: what you want the way you want it.
                     54: 
                     55: what if the alias file is in the process of being written
                     56: when mail comes in?
                     57: 
                     58: depends on your translate program and update process.
                     59: 
                     60: might some get bounced?
                     61: 
                     62: This does happen on rare occassions on our machines.
                     63: 
                     64: how secure is it?  can anyone run programs as another user
                     65: or as root or write to another user's files?
                     66: 
                     67: upas was written because sendmail was obviously insecure.  It tends
                     68: to be small and modular, with easily-understandable components.  The smtp
                     69: stuff in particular is small and has been revetted many times.  I wouldn't
                     70: bet my daughter on it, but I probably would bet next week's salary.
                     71: The smtp daemons run as `uucp'.  `Send' runs as root for the usual
                     72: reasons.  It takes a lot of care before writing into a `mailbox.'
                     73: 
                     74: can we have user-maintained mailing lists that won't
                     75: compromise security?
                     76: 
                     77: Obviously they could break mailing by rerouting addresses, but I can't think
                     78: of a way they could break into the system or overwrite an inappropriate
                     79: file.
                     80: 
                     81: will upas let us mail to novax!user to send mail over
                     82: uucp to atlanta, yet let us mail to user@novax to
                     83: send mail to users on our major sun?
                     84: 
                     85: Yes.  This is easily arranged with the rewrite rules.  The rewrite rules
                     86: are a series of regular expressions and a few verbs, and a shell scripts
                     87: to do the actual delivery.
                     88: 
                     89: paul reported problems in which mail to
                     90: [email protected] get converted to argo!paul
                     91: and then went to some unrelated system.
                     92: has this problem been fixed?
                     93: 
                     94: This is the result of policy decisions dealing with mapping domain and
                     95: uucp name spaces.  Our rewrite rules implement our policy.  I am not happy
                     96: with the current arrangement, but haven't been able to figure out how to
                     97: do what we want without breaking other stuff.  I continue to ponder
                     98: possible solutions.
                     99: 
                    100: can upas send mail to user@[aa.bb.cc.dd], i.e. a dotted
                    101: internet address?  that's the address symbolics systems present to us.
                    102: 
                    103: Again, this can be handled with rewrite rules.  We have implemented some
                    104: of this form with no trouble.  
                    105: 

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