Very Computer

I use diald to do the automatic dialing for me.  Others use the
demand dialing option in pppd.  You need pppd versions greater
than 2.3.0 for this to work.  If you have an older version of
pppd, you will also need to patch the kernel and recompile a
new kernel.  You need to read the documentation included in
the pppd source file archive.

I think diald gives you more options for controlling what will
bring up the link to your ISP.  It also is slightly harder to get
setup.

Quote:>2.  The ability to filter mail messages according to various criteria,
>and have unwaned messages bounce back to the sender.

Procmail is probably the software to use.  It is probably integrated
into your /etc/sendmail.cf as a mailer.  If so, you just need to set
up a .procmailrc file in your home directory.  There are all kinds of
things you can do with it to filter email.

If it is not called through through your /etc/sendmail.cf file, you
can rebuild a new one with it included or place a .forward file in
your home directory to call it.  The man pages explain this.

Quote:>E-mail happens to be one of my weak areas.  What do I need to
>accomplish this?  I've know that procmail is popular for filtering
>e-mail.  Do I need to have sendmail running on my machine?  Can anyone
>recommend a good book for a wannabe mail administrator like myself?
>I'd appreciate any advice.  I'm looking for a reliable solution that
>works.  I don't care about user-friendliness (I enjoy the challenges
>and learning experiences that Linux often brings).

I have three machines networked together.  The Windows 95 machine
has Eudora Light on it which we use to write our email with.  Once
we send it out, it goes to my Linux machine where it sits until a
link to my ISP comes up.

In my /etc/ppp/ip-up file, I start fetchmail as a demon to check for
email every 5 minutes.  From the same file, I issue the command
"sendmail -q" to send out any queued email to my ISP's mail machine.

When starting up sendmail when the Linux machine starts, I issue
the command "/usr/sbin/sendmail -bd -q."

The linux.mc file that I have used to generate a sendmail.cf from
is shown below.  You may or may not need or want all of these.  Like
I mentioned above, I want sendmail to just accept the mail and hold
it until I bring up my link.

=========================start======================
include(`../m4/cf.m4')
VERSIONID(`linux for smtp-only setup with procmail')dnl
OSTYPE(linux)
MASQUERADE_AS(yourISP.com)
FEATURE(genericstable)dnl
FEATURE(allmasquerade)dnl
FEATURE(nocanonify)dnl
FEATURE(always_add_domain)dnl
FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
define(`confCON_EXPENSIVE', `True')dnl
define(`confHOSTS_FILE', `/etc/hosts')dnl
define(`confSERVICE_SWITCH_FILE', `/etc/service.switch')dnl
define(`SMTP_MAILER_FLAGS', `e')dnl
define(`SMART_HOST', `smtp:[smtp.yourISP.com]')dnl
MAILER(local)dnl
MAILER(smtp)dnl
=========================end========================

My login name on my local machine is different than the one at my
ISP.  That is why I have the genericstable set up.

Hope this is of some benefit.

--
Frank Hahn