A bridge between packet messages and emails
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Has anyone thought about using BBS for emails ?
I'm thinking about fake POP3 and SMTP servers
which would transform plain emails, sent by any
mail software, to and from packet messages ?
The goal would be to simplify use of packet radio.
The architecture would globally be, for message reading :
* A POP3 server running on the local machine, for local use only.
* Your packet address, for example F4ECW@F6RAC.FRPA.FR.EU is associated to this POP3 server. This address is used also for login to the server.
* When loading the message, the POP3 server is able to extract the BBS callsign from the login. It then reads the messages using ax25mail, and transofm them into POP3 output.
Hi,
I've had the same idea. Actually I have already written a POP3 server in perl which makes available the messages downloaded by ulistd/axgetmail to POP3 clients (tested with KMail). There are however a few problems. POP3 doesn't allow to select which messages should be downloaded - it means you can see the messages downloaded by axgetmail from pre-configured bulletins but you can't download a message on demand. We could create an extension to POP3 but we would have to write a new client :-(
However, I am going this way now. It would be great if you could help me, it's lots of work and I have little free time. For example you can start writing the SMTP server :-)
Radek OK2JBG
Hi Radek,
Great you're still on the project !!!
* A POP3 client is not that hard to write, and some libraries probably already exist.
* Small problem with axgetlist : It does not know
when to stop reading. There was also a small
problem with automatic pagination with FBB,
which was solved with the commands "OP 20; OP;".
* I'm interested by smtp. The names could be ax25pop3d and ax25smtpd, for example.
* The problem you describe could maybe be solved
by putting as much information as possible in
the "email" address, while keeping exactly the syntax
of a real email address (to avoir problems with MUA),
and be able to use a real BBS address, to make OMs
feel comfortable.
- For POP3, the address syntax is (for me) :
F4ECW@F6RAC-1_F5KTR.FRPA.FRA.EU
- Only 'F4ECW' is mandatory. And only this part is
used for a password validation (btw, using PAM could be convenient on the long term, even if it is heavy).
- "F6RAC-1_F5KTR" gives my BBS and the path to my BBS.
- For reading bulletins, another 'fake' email address
would be for example : AMSAT@F6RAC-1_F5KTR :
which means "all AMSAT bulletins sent to this BBS".
Or maybe, if the MUA agrees :
"F4ECW+AMSAT@F6RAC-1_F5KTR.
- For POP3, it would be fine to use the commands
'K' and 'KM' to kill messages. for security, they could be deleted only in a cache.
For SMTP, the same syntax would apply, but :
- It would be possible to send a message to the address : "F4ECW@FRPA"
- The sender email address is used to get
the BBS callsign.
- Difficult : the same mail may be sent to AX25 and normal mail addresses. In this case, we should specify an extra 'real' smtp server and an extra 'real' email address. I do not know how.
* It would be fine to use the same IO AX25 functions.
* The port numbers must be command line parameters, if the machine already has pop3 and smtp servers.
* For performance, the POP3 server could preload frequently accessed bulletins, and SMTP multithreaded.
What do you think ? It could be a good possibility for OMs who have the right to use BBS but do not know how to.
Regards
Rmi F4ECW
It's very nice idea but I find the 'fake' mail addresses a little bit complicated for normal user. Most of the users usualy read the subjects and download only 'interesting' messages and this is still the problem. It's not handy to send an e-mail for downloading each message and it is usualy useless to download all the messages from the bulletin.
Anyway, with sending the mail out via SMTP there is no problem so you can start thinking of the SMTP server if you want to.
Radek
Thaks for the answer. Please tell me how I can send some sources, and how to exchange ideas in an open manner (specialised forum ?), especially to reuse existing code, if possible.
Rmi F4ECW
Remi, I have made you a member of the ax25mail project. You have now acces to the "Developers" forum which is not public (and it's empty now) but we can also continue here. If you have some sources you can use the "Patches" tracker (it's not limited to patches only). I am going to place my work version of axpop3 to Patches too, during this weekend (I hope). We can think about using CVS too. Take a look at SourceForge tools and tell me what you find handy.
I have another idea which I started working on (you'll see in axpop3 source). It's an extension to POP3 for selecting and downloading the messages. The idea is that there will be two clients - one is a normal mail pop3 client (KMail or whatever) and the other is a simple client that only allows to view the list of all available messages and select the messages to be downloaded. The downloaded messages then come as normal e-mail to the mail client. What do you think?
As you'll see, the pop3 server is almost ready. What's your opinion about taking care of the SMTP server?
Radek
Thanks to have put me in the project. Answerts in the developpers forum.