Bypassing default SMTP mail hub

[Jack Trachtman]

We have two internal mail servers while we transition between different mail products. I have the SMTP ALTERNATE GATEWAY set to point to the server that should be used most of the time, but for some MAIL msgs I'd like to use a different host.

Is there a way to get the MAIL cmd to bypass the default mail hub and use an alternate?

Thx

[Hakan Zanderau ( Anders]

A loooong time ago, I used "poor mans routing" when troubleshooting different mailproblems.

user@host1@host2@host3

Hakan Zanderau

[Hoff]

Yep, the old multiple-@ notation for message routing, and the now-deprecated % notation. That brings back memories of the "fun" that was ARPANET and uunet and...

The SMTP server within the TCP/IP Services product is (and in most polite of terminology) simple; it's nowhere near the current feature set of modern SMTP servers, and (if the explicit @ path routing doesn't work here) I'd be surprised if there were a way to coax it to use different gateways.

If you can't use path routing, then look for a client on the OpenVMS box (pine or php or such) to send the mail directly to the target gateway (bypassing the local SMTP server entirely) then installing a Mac Mini Server or such (and setting up some rules over there) may well be the fastest way to your end-goal here. A Mac Mini Server or analogous is likely easily able to field all of the SMTP mail traffic from a typical OpenVMS box.

As for some of the client options, have a look at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmailer/

as a start. Something similar to that should do what you want; basically a client connection that directly uses pop3 or imap and SMTP. Most modern languages have SMTP libraries available, and these can generally bypass the OpenVMS SMTP server. And there are various mail clients around for OpenVMS including pine. And pine is on the Freeware.