"Mark Firestone" <hash_bang / retrobbs.org> writes:

> Ok.  Here's the plan.
>
> I have this here BBS.  It knows how to speak fidonet and qwk/rep
> net, but I would also like the users on it to be able to send and
> receive smtp mail, and I would like to be able to use it as a
> listserv... so that you could have a message area that exported new
> messages to folks email accounts and imported incoming emails to the
> message area.
>
> So, say general messages would be general / bbs.retrobbs.org and such.
>
> I've been thinking I could use the Sendmail built into slackware.  I
> think I can configure it to accept any incoming email and put it in
> /usr/spool/mail ?  I don't really know much about it...
>
> Take Care,
>
> Mark

For sending email, Ruby has that built in.  Check out Net::SMTP.  Your
Slackware box will have sendmail listening, and Net::SMTP can send to
it.  The advantage of this approach is that someday your SMTP server
may change machines, and your BBS can just point to the new host.

For receiving email, you have a lot of options.  I don't know all that
much about Sendmail, and how you can configure it (I am more familiar
with Postfix).  I assume you will have some set of valid recipients,
and you'll want to some how inject the received messages into your BBS
for specific users?

If you end up having sendmail run a ruby script (via .forward or
otherwise) you might consider my program http://www.lickey.com/meg/ --
it will prevent "random" errors from causing mail bounces.

I have also written a local mail delivery agent (like procmail) -- see
http://www.lickey.com/rubyfilter/



-- 
matt