****************************************************************************** File: ultimail.txt Version 3.0 16-Apr-1995 Niel Kempson ****************************************************************************** Configuring UltiMail/2 Lite for SMTP Mail ========================================= Contents -------- 1. Introduction 2. Warning 3. Assumptions 4. Starting UltiMail/2 5. Configuring UltiMail/2 6. Testing your UltiMail/2 setup 7. Supporting more than one mail user 8. Frequently encountered problems (FEPs) 9. What if it still doesn't work ? 10. Useful references 11. Change log 1. Introduction --------------- UltiMail/2 Lite is supplied as part of the Internet Access Kit (IAK) accompanying the new OS/2 Warp 3. UltiMail/2 Lite is described and configured by IBM as a mail client using the Post Office Protocol (POP) to exchange mail with a designated server machine. Some Internet access provides offer POP servers, but some do not and assume that your site is capable of using the standard SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) services. Many Internet access providers prefer to deliver mail to subscribers using the standard SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) services rather than POP - a notable example is Demon Internet Services in the UK (20,000 subscribers in January 1995 and rising at 10% a month). The provider benefits from using SMTP rather than POP because he doesn't need to provide a permanent mailbox account for each subscriber. This small kit describes how to set up your Warp/IAK system to use UltiMail/2 Lite as your mail package and exchange mail with the outside world using SMTP rather than POP. The instructions are by no means comprehensive and they are probably unclear in places so please feed back any constructive suggestions (including typos) to improve this kit. All of the information in this guide has been gleaned from books, examination of binary files etc. There's nothing in here that could possibly be construed as official IBM information. 2. Warning ---------- The standard Warp/IAK setup assumes that you will be using POP to exchange your e-mail with Advantis. If you're not sure that you need to use SMTP, please check whether your provider supports POP before acting on the recommendations in this kit. IBM will certainly tell you that using Warp/IAK with SMTP is unsupported, but if you need SMTP support, you have little/no choice. If you're an Advantis customer, you use POP and don't need this kit for your Advantis connection. If you're a Demon Internet customer, you will need this kit unless you have paid up for the POP delivery service - it's an extra UKP 180 a year so you'll know :-) 3. Assumptions -------------- Throughout this document I have assumed that the IAK software has been installed under the C:\TCPIP directory. If you have not installed it in this directory, you will need to adjust the examples quoting path specifications to suit your system setup. Two UltiMail/2 specific files containing path specifications are umail.pro umailsrv.pro so please check them carefully if your setup isn't installed in the default location. I have also assumed that you have acquired and installed the latest fixes to UltiMail/2. At the time of writing, the latest fix was described by IBM thus: Ultimedia Mail/2 Lite fixes (last updated February 2, 1995) ----------------------------------------------------------- This package provides fixes to several problems in Ultimail. A paste of large volumes of text into the text editor from the clipboard would trap. Second, if the POP server were to drop the session during mail retrieval, the Ultimail inbasket would hang. Third, mail sending would fail under certain circumstances, for example if your Internet provider name server did not have a host name for your IP address. These problems are fixed with this package. Contents: 17977 12-19-94 17:00 umail/OBJMLE.DLL 18143 12-21-94 15:38 umail/PIPETCP.DLL 10146 12-21-94 18:18 umail/POP.DLL 103714 01-31-95 13:21 bin/sendmail.exe Do *NOT* install this new version of sendmail (1.3.10) - keep the original version (1.3.6). It appears to be safe to install the 3 DLL files. Also, the sendmail.exe provided with IBM TCP/IP v2.0 does not work with UltiMail/2 Lite. It's available by starting the "Retrieve Software Updates" object or by issuing the command "gopher updates.gopher.ibm.com 77". 4. Starting UltiMail/2 Lite --------------------------- The standard installation of the IAK creates an "Ultimedia Mail/2 'Lite'" folder containing objects like "In-basket", "Mail Cabinet". They are not program objects with customisable setting and launching UltiMail/2 from them gives you no scope to adjust UltiMail/2's behaviour. If you wish to change the default startup behaviour of UltiMail/2, you'll find it more convenient to create a program object with these parameters: Path and file name: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.EXE Parameters: /PRO=UMAIL.PRO Working directory: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL Title: UltiMail/2 Lite UltiMail/2 can be started with a variety of undocumented command line options. After examining UMAIL.EXE with a Hex editor, I have found these options: /U= the user ID is /PW= the password for the user ID is /PRO= use as the profile file /MIN start minimised /MAX start maximised /LOGO display the UltiMail/2 logo at startup /NOLOGO don't display the UltiMail/2 logo at startup /VGA use only VGA resolution resources /LOGLEVEL= generate logging information according to the value of , which can be one of: C_FLOW internal program flow INFO information messages WARNING warning messages ERROR error messages OUTPUT ?? NONE nothing A value of includes all of the categories above it (i.e. INFO includes WARNING, ERROR & OUTPUT, but not C_FLOW). /LOGDEST= send the logging information to , which can be one of: FILE log to C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.LOG PM log to a PM window FILEPM combined FILE and PM NONE no logging When UltiMail/2 starts up, it initialises itself using information from two sources: o firstly, from the UltiMail/2 profile file specified by the /PRO= option, or C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.PRO if /PRO is not specified o secondly, from the hidden configuration file defined by the PROFILE section of the UltiMail/2 profile file. It usually looks like this: :PROFILE provider = 'ADVANTIS' file = 'C:\tcpip\ETC\TCPOS2.INI' . This hidden file is created and updated by the IBM dialer programs ("IBM Internet Dialer" or "Dial Other Internet Providers" objects). 5. Configuring UltiMail/2 Lite ------------------------------ o This section will configure UltiMail/2 to use only the profile file to determine its setup. Before you start, make sure that you save these configuration files: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\*.PRO C:\TCPIP\ETC\SENDMAIL.UML C:\TCPIP\ETC\*.INI o Make sure that the PPP/SLIP connection and UltiMail/2 are not running. o Copy the example files UMAIL.PRO and UMAILSRV.PRO that came with this kit to C:\TCPIP\UMAIL. o Create a program object for UltiMail/2 with these parameters: Path and file name: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.EXE Parameters: /PRO=UMAIL.PRO Working directory: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL Title: UltiMail/2 Lite o Start UltiMail/2 from this freshly created object. If you see a pop-up box entitled "Not Connected to the Internet", click on the "Don't connect" button. o If you see a pop-up box entitled "Accessing a network", make sure that you have copied across the example profile files. o When UltiMail is a little over halfway through its loading process, another pop-up box entitled "Accessing a Mail Server" will appear. Since you're using SMTP, you should make sure that the four fields contain these values: User ID: yourid Password: *** must be empty *** Server: *** must be empty *** Port: 110 Don't change the "yourid" in the User ID field until you have reconfigured UltiMail/2 at the next stage. Click on the "Cancel" button because you don't want to connect to a POP server. o When the Mail Cabinet has started, click on the "Cabinet" menu and then the "Settings" item of that menu. A typical OS/2 settings notebook entitled "UltiMail - Settings" will appear. The settings will be for the mythical user ID "yourid" and you should change them as summarised below. (You can customise them to your heart's content once it's all working, but please bear with me until it is.) Profile, page 1 of 6 Name: your name (e.g. John Smith) ID: your email user ID (e.g. jsmith) Password: just put an asterisk here (*) Profile, page 2 of 6 From: edit the "From:" line that will be attached to your messages. It should be something like: John Smith Reply-To: edit the "Reply-To:" line that will be attached to your messages. It should be something like: John Smith Address: select "Medium" Signature: edit to suit your signature (try to keep it to "-- " plus four lines or you'll attract a number of flame messages) Create: select "Text / plain" Profile, page 3 of 6 Separator: check and set to "//--- forwarded letter ---" Annotation: check and set text to "> " Signature placement: select "After" View all letters in one window: check Beep on new mail: check Profile, page 4 of 6 Client Sessions: select "Local Mail" DLL: select "CSELOCL" Pipe: select "PIPELOCL" UserID: *** must be empty *** Password: *** must be empty *** Retry: set to 3 Interval: set to 5 Logon: check "automatically" Color: select "blue" Profile, page 5 of 6 Don't touch anything on this page! Profile, page 6 of 6 Select the right time zone information for your area. For the UK, this is: Time Zone: Europe - England Switch to summer time: Last Sunday of March Switch to standard time: Last Sunday of October o Close down the settings notebook and the the UltiMail/2 Mail Cabinet. UltiMail/2 should now be ready for use with SMTP. o Restart UltiMail/2 from the program icon. When the "Accessing a Mail Server" pop-up box appears, the User ID field should now contain your real e-mail user ID (as entered on page 1 of the settings notebook). Click on the "Cancel" button because you don't want to connect to a POP server. Unfortunately, you can't stop this pop-up box appearing. The title bar of the Mail Cabinet should show your real name rather than the previous string "Your Name". 6. Testing Your Setup --------------------- o make sure that the mail queue directory (C:\TCPIP\ETC\MQUEUE) is empty o delete or rename the UMAIL.LOG and UMAIL.ERR files in C:\TCPIP\UMAIL o delete or rename the SENDMAIL.LOG and SENDMAIL.ERR files in C:\TCPIP\ETC o make sure that the PPP/SLIP connection is NOT running, start UltiMail/2 Lite from the program icon and then open the In-Basket window. o Compose a message to yourself at your local mail address (e.g yourid@yourhost.your.domain) and send it. You should see a pop-up box entitled "Letter Sent or Queued Successfully" and the In-box will chime soon afterwards as your message is delivered. o Now compose a message to an external "mail mirror" that will send your message back to you. A good example is "bouncer@nic.near.net". Again, you should see a pop-up box entitled "Letter Sent or Queued Successfully" but the message will not be delivered until the PPP/SLIP connection and the sendmail daemon are started. If you have a look in the mail queue directory (C:\TCPIP\ETC\MQUEUE), you should see two files called dfAAxxxx and qfAAxxxx, where xxxx is a four digit number. The file dfAAxxxx contains your message and qfAAxxx is the control file that contains the mail headers and other information. It should be in a similar format to this: P1515 T791920800 DdfAA0050 Skempson Rbouncer@nic.near.net H?P?return-path: Hreceived: by snowyowl.demon.co.uk (IBM OS/2 SENDMAIL VERSION 1.3.6)/(3.0sos) id AA0050; Sun, 5 Feb 95 18:00:00 GMT H?x?full-name: H?M?message-id: <9502051800.AA0050@snowyowl.demon.co.uk> Hmime-version: 1.0 Hdate: Sun, 5 Feb 95 17:59:39 +0100 HFrom: Niel Kempson HTo: "Nearnet bouncer" HReply-To: Niel Kempson Hsubject: Bounce Request Hx-mailer: Ultimedia Mail/2 Lite, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center Hcontent-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Hcontent-id: <37_63_1_791938780> Hcontent-transfer-encoding: 7Bit Hcontent-description: o make sure that the UltiMail/2 In-Basket window is still open, then start the connection and then the sendmail daemon (see section 3 above). Just after the sendmail daemon starts, you should see a message in its window saying that it has delivered a mail message to you and UltiMail/2 will chime shortly afterwards. o try sending some external mail messages to make sure that mail is accepted from other hosts. Three automatic ways spring to mind: o send to a mail "mirror" that automatically replies to you. The only example that I know of is "bouncer@nic.near.net". o send mail to yourself via another system using the "percent hack". E.g. I can send to "kempson%snowyowl.com@post.demon.co.uk" to make the mail go to post.demon.co.uk before coming back to me; o send a "help" message to one of the Bitnet list servers. E.g. send a message to "listserv@hearn.nic.surfnet.nl" with a message text of "help". Whichever method you use should result in a reply, possibly within a minute if your network connection is lightly loaded. When the reply arrives, UltiMail/2 should chime again. 7. Supporting more than one mail user ------------------------------------- UltiMail/2 can support incoming mail for more than one mail user ID, but you need to customise its profile for each user ID. As an example, I'll assume that you want to support mail for John Smith (mail user ID: jsmith) and Alice Jones (mail user ID: ajones). o copy the reference UMAIL.PRO file to create a profile file for each of the users: COPY C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.PRO C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\JSMITH.PRO COPY C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.PRO C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\AJONES.PRO o Create a program object for each of the mail user IDs: For John Smith: Path and file name: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.EXE Parameters: /PRO=JSMITH.PRO Working directory: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL Title: UltiMail/2 Lite (John Smith) For Alice Jones: Path and file name: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.EXE Parameters: /PRO=AJONES.PRO Working directory: C:\TCPIP\UMAIL Title: UltiMail/2 Lite (Alice Jones) o For each user, start UltiMail/2 from the appropriate program icon and follow the steps in section 5 to configure it for that user's details. o After configuration, you'll be able to double click on the appropriate program icon and read/send mail as John Smith or Alice Jones. o It is only possible to run one copy of UltiMail/2 at any one time. o When the PPP/SLIP link is running, you will only be able to open one UltiMail/2 In-box folder to detect incoming mail for that particular user. The simplest way to look at incoming mail is to open the sendmail daemon window - if you start sendmail with the "-d1.1" option, it will log all incoming mail messages, but you won't get any sounds :-( 8. Frequently encountered problems (FEPs) ----------------------------------------- The most common problems encountered with UltiMail/2 are summarised below. When starting UltiMail/2, it presents a "Not Connected to the Internet " pop-up box. Your PPP/SLIP connection is not active and UltiMail/2 is offering to launch the dialer program. It's perfectly safe just to click on the "Don't connect" button if you want to read or compose mail off-line. When starting UltiMail/2, it presents an "Accessing a Network" pop-up box. UltiMail/2 probably doesn't have enough configuration for the desired user name. You may not have started with the example profile files provided with this kit. When starting UltiMail/2, it presents an "Accessing a Mail Server" pop-up box. UltiMail/2 is a POP mailer at heart and it wants to know the information needed to connect to a POP server to collect your mail. Since you're using SMTP, you should make sure that the four fields contain these values: User ID: Password: *** must be empty *** Server: *** must be empty *** Port: 110 Click on the "Cancel" button because you don't want to connect to a POP server. Unfortunately, you can't stop this pop-up box appearing. You can't change the UltiMail/2 settings because the "settings" menu is greyed out. UltiMail/2 probably doesn't have enough configuration for the desired user name. You may not have started with the example profile files provided with this kit. You never get any incoming mail, even though other SMTP packages on your system can receive mail. You need to ensure that the sendmail daemon is always running while your PPP/SLIP connection is running. Details of running and configuring sendmail can be found in the accompanying sendmail.txt file. You never get any incoming mail, even though other SMTP packages on your system can receive mail. People sending the mail to you receive error messages back from their mailers reporting failed delivery This is almost certainly a sendmail configuration error. The most likely cause is that the 'Cw' macro has not been defined in the sendmail.uml file. A possible other cause is a wrapped or incorrectly defined 'Mlocal' line in sendmail.uml. Details of running and configuring sendmail can be found in the accompanying sendmail.txt file. You never get any incoming mail, even though other SMTP packages on your system can receive mail. What's more, the sendmail daemon is running and you can see the message coming in. People sending the mail don't receive any error messages back from their mailers indicating a failed delivery. The most likely cause is that the path specifications in umailsrv.pro are not correct for your setup. You never get any messages the "Received" mail folder. Incoming messages are always put into the "In-basket" mail folder, which unfortunately, isn't opened automatically when you start UltiMail/2 as a program icon. After sending a mail message, you receive a message from MAILER-DAEMON reporting a sendmail error 65. Sendmail couldn't connect to the destination host, even though it thinks that the network is running. The mail will be queued for transmission later. See the companion file sendmail.txt. After sending a mail message, you receive a message from MAILER-DAEMON reporting sendmail error 68. Sendmail can't resolve the IP address of the destination host, usually because the DNS is unreachable (you're off-line) and the host isn't in your HOSTS file. The message will be bounced back to you. See sendmail.txt. 9. What if it still doesn't work ? ---------------------------------- Unfortunately, there are many things that can go wrong with SMTP mail. The clues will usually be found in the log and error files created by sendmail and UltiMail/2: C:\TCPIP\ETC\SENDMAIL.ERR C:\TCPIP\ETC\SENDMAIL.LOG C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.ERR C:\TCPIP\UMAIL\UMAIL.LOG It is possible to make sendmail and UltiMail/2 create large quantities of debugging information by specifying appropriate command line options. Sendmail: start it with the "-d" option (see sendmail.txt for more details). UltiMail/2: start it with the command line options /LOGLEVEL=C_FLOW /LOGDEST=FILE 10. Useful references --------------------- Internet RFCs providing useful information about SMTP and POP services and mail: RFC-822 Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages. RFC-1123 Requirements for Internet hosts - application and support. RFC-1082 Post Office Protocol: Version 3: Extended service offerings. RFC-1225 Post Office Protocol version 3 RFCs are available by ftp from many sites, including: flash.bellcore.com:/pub/rfc ftp.demon.co.uk:/pub/doc/rfc gatekeeper.dec.com:/.3/net/info/rfc munnari.oz.au:/rfc nic.ddn.mil:/rfc sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk:/pub/rfc 11. Change log -------------- 2.0 [05-Feb-1995] Niel Kempson Initial version in the revised format. 3.0 [16-Apr-1995] Niel Kempson Further clarifications for some bits that evidently weren't clear enough :-( ********************************* END OF FILE ********************************