🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <oeCKwAADYFW3EwAv@snorter.demon.co.uk>, Chris Weston
<CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> writes

>In article <928529355.14476.0.nnrp-12.d4e48b20@news.demon.co.uk>,
>Alisdair Wren <alisdair@nospam.demon.co.uk> writes
>>Chris Weston <CWeston@snorter.demon.co.uk> uttered thus:
>>>I understand ip and can write the app no problem, it's just talking to
>>>the mail server that I've never done.
>>
>>Have you read the RFCs that were suggested to you earlier today?
>
>Not in depth.  To be quite honest, they go into more detail than
>I need.

they don't

if anything they fail to describe everything you need to know :( You
will find RFC1123 essential reading and would be well advised to read
the DRUMS working groups Internet Drafts as well...

>  I am more interested in a broad outlook of how the 
>communication works, and what I need to connect to.

you may do better in that case to use Perl and one of the standard
packages that will do the SMTP (or indeed the MIME message construction)
for you.

>  The detail
>that the RFCs contain will be extremely useful once I can
>put them in context.

turning up the tracing level on an existing mailer will show you some
real conversations and give you a much better idea of how conversations
are meant to go (though 821 does have some examples towards the back
that should serve to illustrate the basics)

-- 
richard                       writing to inform and not as company policy
    fewer than 50 MPs still need adopting:  http://www.stand.org.uk/
"Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind" quoted in ZAMM