enamel - THE email-server for the BeOS

What is enamel ?

enamel is a server package for emails. For sure you can use it as a client, too. enamel consists out of several programs to import, process and export email. There is no client to read and write mail included, you should use an extra package for this. There will be a nice client from the author of enamel one day, but until then you can use e.g. BeMail for this job.
Warning: enamel will be part of the internet suite and is currently only a beta version. With the first release it will be included to the internet suite package. Until then you may use it for free.

Is there a documentation ?

I'm realy sorry, but there is only a small documentation in this file, because this is an early beta release of enamel.

So this is the documentation...

To install enamel, just unpack the archive (I think you already have :-) and put the whole directory wherever you want. After that move the stuff in home to /boot/home.

The next thing is important: Deactivate any other email software you are using!

Now we can go on to configure the programs by editing the settings files you moved to /boot/home/config/settings/ two steps before:

MCP (MCP_settings)

This is the core part of enamel. It processes all your email, sorts it by receipients, moves your mail into folders and takes care for the attribute indexes you want to have. Additionally there is a simple mailinglist tool included. A filter tool and some other stuff will be included soon, too.

You have the following options:
- Logfile
  
  This is the file MCP writes some loggin information to.
- Index <Attribute>
  
  MCP will generate an index for every email-attribute you specify here. This is necessary if you want to perform queries on that attribute later.
  
  ( e.g. "Index to" will generate and index for the attribute MAIL:to)
  
  MCP will generate some additional indexes for it's personal use.
- Folder <Name> Query <Querystring>
  
  The attribute "MAIL:folder" will be set to "Name" for every file matching "Querystring". "Querystring" is a normal Be-query. Check Be's documentation for more details about that.
  If an email matches more than one "Querystring", the last one will be chosen.
  Important: On startup, MCP will set all folders wether they are already set or not. After that, it will set folders of new files only.
- Target <Name> [TargetPattern <Pattern>|Default] [Local]
  
  With the attribute "MAIL:target" enamel specifies where an email should go to. Target is no email address, just a kind of folder. The exporters will check this attribute to determine wether the shall pick up that email or not. And you can use that attribute in your queries to show only the email that is for you. You could for example sort the email on your system to different mailboxes for you and your girlfriend.
  For sure you could do that with the folder argument, too, but target is for splitting your mail to different accounts and folder for splitting the mail inside the account into different folders.
  TargetPattern is no Be query! This is simple pattern (no regex, you may only use the asterisk (*)) which is compared against the receipients of the email NOT against the To: field of the email. The receipients are stored as an attribute with the same name either by the importer who stores the email or by MCP if there was no receipients set by the email client.
  If an email matches more than one target, the email will be sent to all the targets! This way you can easily deliver your email to more than one target. Be carefull with this!
  You should always have a target with the "Default" switch set. Normally you will set the "Default" switch for that target all your outgoing mail is sent to.
  Normally MCP will flag all your mail as pending, except if you set the "Local" switch. You should do this for all the mail you want to keep and read on your machine.
  
  Example: Your email address is john@dow.jones. Your girlfriends email address is lisa@dow.jones. So you should set two targets:
  
  Target john TargetPattern "john@dow.jones" Local
  Target lisa TargetPattern "lisa@dow.jones" Local
  
  All mail inside germany (.de) should be send to a special provider:
  
  Target special TargetPattern "*.de"
  
  The rest is sent to your normal feed:
  Target normal Default
  
  I know that this is not simple and that for a better routing of your email the pattern matcher should be much better. Wait for the next version...
- Redirect <Target>
  <Address>
  [<Address>]
  ...
  
  With this you can redirect mail to one or more addresses. All mail for the given target will be picked up and send to all the recipients on the redirect list. The list of Members ends with a blank line.
smtp (smtp_settings)

smtp is a smtp client :-) It will send out your mail via smtp. *grin*
You have the following options:
- Logfile
  
  This is the file smtp writes some logging information to.
- Target <Name> Address <Address> [Port <Port>]
  
  All mail with target set to "Name" will be send to the host "Address". The default portnumber is 25, but you may change it with the "Port" switch.
pop3d (pop3d_settings)

This is a pop3 daemon. It will wait for people to connect to it via pop and fetch their personal mail. Normal authorization and DELETE is supported. I had not the chance to test it very much... but everything should work. email will not be deleted but set to "Deleted".

You have the following options:
- Logfile
  
  This is the file pop3d writes some logging information to.
- User <Name> password <Pass> Target <Target>
  
  All mail with target set to "Target" will be send to the pop client identifiying itself as "Name".
- Port <Portnumber>
  
  Here you can specify on which port to wait for connections. The default is 110.
- MaxConnections <Number>
  
  The maximum number of parallel connections.
smtpd (smtpd_settings)

This is a smtp daemon. It will wait for people to connect to it via smtp and deliver some mail for us.

You have the following options:
- Logfile
  
  This is the file pop3d writes some logging information to.
- Port <Portnumber>
  
  Here you can specify on which port to wait for connections. The default is 25.
- MaxConnections <Number>
  
  The maximum number of parallel connections.

Availability

You will always find the most current version of enamel on BeWare.

History

26.04.1998 Initial Release 0.1b0
10.09.1998 0.2b0
- Changed:
  - List was replaced by Redirect.
- Added:
  - pop3 client
Copyright © 1998 Stegemann & Co., all rights reserved.
Created: April 26th, 1998. Last modified: Septmeber 9th, 1998.