SMTP/POP quetsions

[Willem Grooters]

Busy setting up a mail server I ran into some questions (bugs?)
SMTP (perhaps MAIL?):
Sending a message with TO: and CC: headers off the system, I find both TO and CC recepient addresses on TO: line and none on CC: line. The full header shows VMS_To and VMS_Cc lines.
SMTP:
Messages sent to a certain address seem to get lost - sometimes....But nothing seems to be wrong, no messages sent to postmaster or user.
POP3:
Retrieving messages from the server using OUTLOOK and specifying "Leave copy on server" doesn't work: messages are etrieved and no copy is left on the server

It's a 7.3-1 system, SMTP 5.3, all known public patches applied.

Where do I go wrong?

[Craig A Berry]

You'll want to consult the tuning and troubleshooting guide available from the documentation site:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/tcpip.html

Also see the management manual at the same site for information about enabling verbose logging via the TCPIP$POP_LOG_LEVEL and TCPIP$SMTP_LOG_LEVEL logical names. Look for "logical names" in the index to "Compaq TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS Management".

[Mark Hollinger]

We believed we had fixed the problem of TO: and CC: recipients being intermixed, back in April 2001. The fix required an extension to the internal VMSMAIL protocol, and I'm not sure whether that extension made OpenVMS 7.3-1.

When you choose "leave copy on server", messages you retrieve via POP are, indeed, left on the server. They are moved to the MAIL folder, rather than deleted. That's often what a user would want, since a copy of the messages is then kept (in case the hard drive on your PC fails, for example), but future POP sessions aren't slowed down by slogging through the already-retrieved messages.

- M

[Willem Grooters]

Mail might get lost because DNS misses items, I've been told. I'm investigating that anyway.

Craig:
Thanks for the hint - I'll take a look there.

Mark,

At the time of reading your reply, I have no ability to check again but surely, I'll take a closer look (especially on the TO:/CC: matter)

On the behaviour of "Leave a copy", I think I need to clearify what _I_ would expect.

In normal use, a user would read his mail (using POP) to get the message to his system (usually a PC), and have no need to leave it on the server. It's just in certain circumstances that mail is to be left on the server. One reason: as a mobile wordker, I want to access mail from a laptop (for immediate reference and action), but later from a workstation for archival and other activities. In the first case, I need to leave a copy on the server (in NEWMAIL) to be able to read it on the workstation. Once read from there, there is no need to retrieve it again.

It would not be a problem if you could retrieve the messages from the MAIL folder, but with POP you cannot access that. So it simply doesn't fit my needs.

It would be nice if there was at least a possibility to influence this, preferably on user level (so in the personal mail preferences): "Leave a copy" meaning "move the message to MAIL" (current behaviour, as a default) or "Send a copy to requestor" (being equal to "Leave a copy in NEWMAIL".).

I know I should propose this to engineering, I guess. (I do not have a support contract (just a small, personal, owner/administrator/user) so I cannot use that channel...)

[Mark Hollinger · Accepted solution]

You should define one of:

TCPIP$POP_USE_MAIL_FOLDER or
TCPIP$POP_LEAVE_IN_NEWMAIL

Define the logical name system-wide, prior to starting or restarting the POP server. Note that these two mean slightly different things and are mutually exclusive.

If you tell the POP server to use your MAIL folder, then mail saved there will always be visible to POP clients. New mail will be moved there automatically so as to be included in the list of available messages.

If you select LEAVE_IN_NEWMAIL, then messages which your POP client does not delete will be left in your NEWMAIL folder, rather than MAIL. At some point, you will need to clean them up, removing them entirely from the OpenVMS server.

- M

[Willem Grooters]

Thanx mark,

Just to clarify:
Does this apply to ALL POP-retrieval requests or just those where "Leave copy on server" has been requested? I would prefer the latter...

[Willem Grooters]

Oops, should have read better...
So:

First read, with "Leave copy" would leave a copy whereever specified (NEWMAIL of MAIL)
Secod rend, without "Leave copy" would remove it, presumably where it's found: NEWMAIL (TCPIP$POP_LEAVE_IN_NEWMAIL = TRUE) or MAIL (TCPIP$POP_USE_MAIL_FOLDER = TRUE).

I hope this assumption is correct :-).

[Mark Hollinger]

Right, if you don't check the "Leave copy" box, then Outlook Express will send the POP server a DELE command after retrieving each message. When told to delete a message, the TCP/IP Services POP server will delete it regardless of the logicals you've defined. The only question is what to do with a message when it is *not* deleted.

The default behavior is to move the message to the MAIL folder, where it won't clutter up any future POP sessions but can be brought back manually if needed. That happens to be just what I want, and it feels VMS-like to me. It sounds like you would prefer more UNIX-like behavior, which can be selected via those logical names.

- M

[Willem Grooters]

Mark,

The TO:/CC: problem seems still to exist in VMS 7.3-1 so it missed the update in 7.3, I still get both recepients on the TO line. VMS_TO and VMS_CC are ok...

[Willem Grooters]

Mark - forget my last remark.
It works.