rmail(ADM)

rmail -- submit remote mail received via UUCP

Syntax

rmail user ...

Description

rmail interprets incoming mail received via uucp(C), passing the processed mail onto submit(ADM) for processing by the MMDF mail system. rmail is explicitly designed for use with UUCP and the MMDF submit program. It is not intended for use by regular users.

rmail performs several conversions on the incoming mail before calling submit. The conversions change addresses from the UUCP routing style (lists of hosts separated by the character ``!'') to the domain style of address used within the MMDF mail system. The incoming message is dealt with in the following manner:

  1. The initial ``From'' (or ``>From'') line is processed to discover the originating site and the sender of the message. Some UUCP mailers do not supply this information as part of the message body. If the originating site cannot be found from this information, the program environment is inspected for the variable ACCTSYS; this is set to the originating system by some implementations of UUCP. The originating system is used as a table lookup value into the MMDF table rmail.chans, the file contains site/channel pairs. If a match is found, the resulting channel is used for the submit phase. The default UUCP channel is used if no match is found. The default channel name is specified in the conf.c source and can be run-time tailored. Typically, it is UUCP. The existence of this channel is mandatory to prevent dropping mail from unknown hosts.

  2. The body of the message is inspected looking for any header lines containing addresses; the lines are ``From:'', ``To:'', ``Cc:'', ``Bcc:'' and ``Sender:''. By scanning the address chains, the addresses in these lines are converted into ``user@known-site.domain'' form using the MMDF tables to evaluate whether the mailer knows the site. For this to work properly, the unqualified name of all sites should exist in the appropriate domain tables. The scanning stops when an unknown site is discovered; a composite address will then be created. The ``From:'' line is treated specially to preserve any comment information that may have been inserted by the originating mailer.

  3. The ``Date:'' line is re-written into ARPA standard form.

Before submit is called, the message is re-written into RFC 822/733 form with all addresses obeying the appropriate convention. Any missing header lines are supplied. The destination address for the message is taken from the argument to rmail, so the header re-writing that is done does not affect the routing of the message.

See also

mail(C), mailx(C), submit(ADM), uucp(C)

Standards conformance

rmail is conformant with AT&T SVID Issue 2.
© 2005 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
SCO OpenServer Release 6.0.0 -- 03 June 2005