🚀 go-pugleaf

	- hi; in article, <20120905.1309.932310snz@twoplaces.co.uk>,
	  simon@twoplaces.co.uk "Simon Turner" reflected & updated:

>I've just finished testing and uploaded binaries for GremNOS v0.3f (with
>luck, just in time for ppint, who was migrated just over an hour ago).

	- thanks for the thought: alas, i didn't connect to download
	news between 08:00 and 18:00 bst, so my first (couple of)
	POP3 mail dow^W collections were using pplt_03e (which worked
	fine, though not quite as i expected in a couple of ways, one
	of which could easily've been my failure to double-check the
	instruction sheet for full comprehension...)(t'other was that
	"leave on" after collection proved to be the default, which i
	didn't discover 'til the second time i connected & collected:
	but this wasn't pplt_03e's fault, and was fixed on the follow-
	ing connection by a guessed-at command, pop3 leave off<enter>
	from the net> prompt.)(well, it _seems_ to've worked...)
>
>v0.3f adds two significant improvements to the POP3 side of things
>compared to the previous v0.3e:
>
>(a) There's a new wildcard-based system that, if used, causes GremNOS to
>    download the message header via POP3 and parse it to find the sender
>    and recipient (effectively replacing the functionality that used to
>    be available with Demon's *ENV POP3 extension) -- it's nothing like
>    as efficient as *ENV, because it has to download and inspect the
>    entire header rather than just read a short (five line) response,
>    but it does work.  I hope it won't be unacceptably slow for those
>    using a modem!
>
>(b) If the sender isn't known (because you haven't used the *ENV or
>    wildcard systems to find it) and you have a non-empty MAILKILL file,
>    the message header can (optionally) be downloaded and parsed to find
>    the sender, ready to check against your mailkill rules: if this is
>    not done, mailkill checking doesn't happen at all.
>
>I've also improved the handling of unusual mailbox names to make it less
>likely that messages will be rejected because of invalid filename chars.
[snip - not so far tested by yr hmbl srppint.]
>
>As with 0.3e, the following new builds can by downloaded from my
>ashes.org.uk web site (there's no index page, just files) -- the full
>set of builds is available this time:
>
>http://www.ashes.org.uk/gremnos/pplt_03f.zip    ppint's custom Lite build

	- allowing ppint.s (and others) unfortunate enough to receive
	large amounts of ub/ce to apply mailkill file rules to mail
	addressed to postmaster@, and even close this address to mail;
	if you disable it, do *not* forget to re-enable it afterwards -
	as i did.  once.
>
>Wildcard header scanning
>------------------------
>
>The wildcard system in (a) above is used if the fourth argument to the
>"pop3 collect" command is "*wild" (cf. the old "*env" argument), e.g.
>
>  pop3 collect mail.demon.co.uk administrator@host.demon.co.uk pass *wild
>
>You will also need to set the wildcard pattern with the new "pop3
>wildpat" command; there is no default pattern hard-wired in, because it
>would be very specific to the current state of Demon's new platform and
>might stop working in the future.  For the new Demon mail platform, it
>should currently be set thus (put it in your AUTOEXEC.NET):
>
>  pop3 wildpat ">Received: from *[      ]by *.inty.net *[       ]for <**>*"

	- this wildcard system appears to work fine; i placed the above
	line just before the PPP commands section, & after the NNTP com-
	mands, but suspect this isn't critical, since a) it'll only be
	triggered after the connection is established, and b) simon'd've
	warned if it were - unless he's possessed of a sense of humour
	most perfectly suited to the denizens of afp or alt.sex.reptiles...
>
>The stuff in the two pairs of square brackets [ ] is a space (ASCII 32)
>and a tab (ASCII 9) -- check this carefully if you cut-and-paste the
>line from this article, because if you don't have the tab character in
>there, the pattern won't match the header fields created by the new
>platform.  (The space is belt-and-braces, in case they decide to stop
>using tabs and revert to the spaces that every other server uses.)

	- what happens if they decide to insert comments?  (- [a])
>
>A quick explanation of the unusual bits of this wildcard pattern:
>
> * The ">" at the beginning tells it to use the *last* match found
>   rather than the first; when using the catch-all administrator
>   mailbox, all the "Received:" fields except the last contain
>   administrator@yourhost which isn't a lot of help.  (Turnpike falls
>   foul of this.)
>
> * The unusual "**" near the end tells GremNOS which part of the pattern
>   contains the actual address it's trying to find.

	- how long would it take me to learn the hows & whys of how
	& why the above makes sense?  & is it o.k. if i just *gulp*,
	and say "yes, simon, certainly, simon"/"of course, simon" ?
>
>Mailkill header scanning
>------------------------
>
>As noted in (b) above, if you have a MAILKILL file but the sender
>address is unknown at the point where mailkill rules are checked,
>e.g. because you haven't used *env (on the old platform) or *wild (on
>the new one), it can download the header via POP3 and scan it for the
>"Return-Path:" header field -- if this isn't done, the mailkill rules
>are not checked at all and the sender is regarded as approved.
>
>Whether this header downloading and scanning takes place is controlled
>by the "pop3 findsender" value (0, 1 or 2):
>
>  0  Never do it: unknown senders are approved
>
>  1  Only do it if you have a non-empty MAILKILL file
>
>  2  Always do it (which means that the sender address will appear in the
>     log files if the message is rejected due to an unknown recipient
>     address, for example).
>
>The default is "pop3 findsender 1".
>
>I think that's all the important stuff: I've been running an earlier
>version of the wildcard scanning for a few weeks, and have had no
>problems, so I'm pretty confident that it all works as it should.
>
>I'll upload the source files and proper release notes when I get a
>moment.  In the meantime, please try it out and let me know if you have
>any questions, problems etc.

	- it seems to work just fine; many thanks for your very timely
	work on this.

	- love, ppint.

	[a] - sorry; please feel free to ignore this

	[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
-- 
                   "The Dinner was loose again."
           - _Chanur's Homecoming_, C. J. Cherryh, 1987
                  Phantasia, Daw & Methuen Books