GetMail - Version 1.10 INTRODUCTION: GetMail is a POP Client, it is used for receiving mail to your local Amiga host from an Internet POP host. GetMail was written with referance to the following mail RFC's. RFC-821, RFC-822, RFC-1081, RFC-1225, RFC-1725. REQUIREMENTS: Getmail requires WB 2.04 as a minimum (and will also utilise the file buffering of WB 3.0 where possible). GetMail is for use with AmiTCP (it will not work with AS225), it was developed on version 4.0 of AmiTCP but I have linked the program to the old version 3 Net.lib for AmiTCP 3.0 Beta users. A number of MLink users are also using GetMail successfully. BACKGROUND: When I signed up to get Internet access I keenly downloaded software from my local BBS and was immediately disapointed while reading the installation instructions. It was quite clear that much of the software was ported from the Unix/UUCP environment as the software wanted a lot of assigns like UULib:, UUSpool: and many environmental variables. Even worse, several software packages used the environmental variables in conflicting mannors. The Ported Unix code did not take full advantage to the Amiga OS and resulted in large executable sizes. I decided to write my own utilities. INSTALLATION: I have provided both 68000 and 68020 executables for both AmiTCP version 4 and AmiTCP version 3. Simply copy the GetMail executable (this is a dos command so no icon is required) to a location somewhere in your path. A good place for it is in the AmiTCP:bin drawer. I reccommend creating a file in your home directory named '.EMailAddr' (without the 's) which should hold your full E-Mail address (which is also used by PutMail). See the details of EMAILADDR below. Next we need a POPHost definition which is the name of the POP Host that holds your E-Mail mailbox. AmiTCP users should put an entry in their AmiTCP:db/hosts file, MLink users should create an environmental variable. See the details of POPHOST below. These items are not manditory but they do reduce the arguments that you need to pass to GetMail. Provided AmiTCP is up and running you can use GetMail immediately. OVERVIEW: GetMail receives mail to the local AmiTCP user's HOME directory. The local file is "From " delimited (same as AmiPOP). GetMail uses three environmental variables that all exist in AmiTCP installations. They are USER (userid), HOME (home drawer) and HOSTNAME (localhostname.domain). Home can however be specified on the command line (useful for multiple AmiTCP users on same machine). Please note that AmiTCP creates the above three environmntal variables for you. AmiTCP users should not have to setup these variables manually. USAGE: The command template for GetMail is "GetMail MAIL=MAILFILE/K, USER/K,PASS=PASSWORD/A,HOME/K,EMAILADDR/K,POPHOST/K,DELETE/S,VERBOSE/S". Lets go through the arguments one by one. MAIL=MAILFILE Optional argument. This is the name of your local mail message file in your home directory directory where messages are to be stored. It must be file name with no device name as GetMail appends this name to your home path. If the mail file does not exist it will be created. If it does exist the mail will be appended to it. The default name is "MailBox.InWard". The argument can be specified as MAILFILE=foo or abreviated as MAIL=foo. USER Optional argument. This is the LogonID you use to access the POP Host. If you don't provide this argument your local AmiTCP UserID will be used. This required because sometimes your LogonID is not the same as your mailbox UserID. If you specify another valid AmiTCP user then the HOME directory for that user will be obtained from the password file. This will over ride the HOME argument and the HOME environmental variable. This does not happen when using MLink. PASS=PASSWORD Manditory argument. This is the password you use to access the POP Host. HOME Optional argument. This is your home path where your mailbox, E-Mail Header, E-Mail Signature and E-Mail Address is stored. Most people will probally not use this. If HOME is not specified then the environmental variable HOME will be used. If you use the USER argument for another AmiTCP user then the home path is obtained from the password file (none functional on MLink). EMAIL=EMAILADDR Optional argument. This is your full E-Mail address. If this argument is not supplied GetMail will use the environmental variable EMAILADDR, if that doesn't exist it will read the HOME:.EMailAddr file, if that does not exist it will use your local AmiTCP UserID and the name of the POPHost that you are connecting to. The contents of the HOME:.EMailAddr file can be in one of three formats. 1) user@domain eg: mlanza@southern.co.nz 2) user@domain (Name) eg: mlanza@southern.co.nz (Martin V Lanza) 3) Name eg: Martin V Lanza POPHOST Optional argument. This is the name of the POP host that holds your E-Mail mailbox. If this argument is not supplied GetMail will use the environmental variable POPHOST, if that doesn't exist it will look in your local AmiTCP:db/hosts file for an alias of POPHost, if that does not exist GetMail will use the name of the host that you are connected to (obtained from the domain part of the local host name in the environmental variable HOSTNAME). Example of the hosts file entry. 192.231.84.33 mail.southern.co.nz POPHost DELETE Optional argument. This argument switches on deletion of messages read from the mailbox. VERBOSE Optional argument. This argument simply switches on verbose reporting of the program's activities and progress. If you have problems using GetMail this may help explain why it's not working. You can always redirect the verbose output to a file and post this to be if you need assistance. DEVELOPMENT: GetMail was developed on an Amiga 3000 running WB 3.1 using SAS/C 6.55. SO LONG AND THANKS FOR THE FISH: I hope you find GetMail easy to use and usefull. Bug reports, Comments, ideas, *POSTCARDS*, E-Mail, gifts and requests for new utilities all welcome. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This program is freeware, use and/or distribute as you wish on a "NON Profit" basis. Inclusion on the Aminet and Fred Fish CD's is welcomed due to their long standing support of the Amiga. No warranty exists, use this software at your own risk. I will answer all E-Mail and Snail-Mail messages. I can also be contacted on IRC #Amiga as mlanza. I do provide bug fixes via UUEncoded E-Mail. Martin V Lanza PO Box 8344, Christchurch, New Zealand. mlanza@southern.co.nz Home Phone 64-3-366-1618