rmail(ADM)                      19 June 1992                      rmail(ADM)


 Name

    rmail - submit remote mail received via UUCP

 Syntax

    rmail user ...

 Description

    rmail interprets incoming mail received via uucp(C), passing the pro-
    cessed mail onto submit(ADM) for processing by the MMDF mail system.
    rmail is explicitly designed for use with UUCP and the MMDF submit pro-
    gram.  It is not intended for use by regular users.

    rmail performs several conversions on the incoming mail before calling
    submit.  The conversions change addresses from the UUCP routing style
    (lists of hosts separated by the character ``!'') to the domain style of
    address used within the MMDF mail system.  The incoming message is dealt
    with in the following manner:

    1) The initial ``From'' (or ``>From'') line is processed to discover the
       originating site and the sender of the message.  Some UUCP mailers do
       not supply this information as part of the message body.  If the
       originating site cannot be found from this information, the program
       environment is inspected for the variable ACCTSYS; this is set to the
       originating system by some implementations of UUCP.  The originating
       system is used as a table lookup value into the MMDF table
       rmail.chans, the file contains site/channel pairs.  If a match is
       found, the resulting channel is used for the submit phase.  The
       default UUCP channel is used if no match is found.  The default chan-
       nel name is specified in the conf.c source and can be run-time
       tailored.  Typically, it is UUCP.  The existence of this channel is
       mandatory to prevent dropping mail from unknown hosts.

    2) The body of the message is inspected looking for any header lines con-
       taining addresses; the lines are ``From:'', ``To:'', ``Cc:'', ``Bcc:''
       and ``Sender:''.  By scanning the address chains, the addresses in
       these lines are converted into ``user@known-site.domain'' form using
       the MMDF tables to evaluate whether the mailer knows the site.  For
       this to work properly, the unqualified name of all sites should exist
       in the appropriate domain tables.  The scanning stops when an unknown
       site is discovered; a composite address will then be created.  The
       ``From:'' line is treated specially to preserve any comment informa-
       tion that may have been inserted by the originating mailer.

    3) The `Date:' line is re-written into ARPA standard form.

    Before submit is called, the message is re-written into RFC822/733 form
    with all addresses obeying the appropriate convention.  Any missing
    header lines are supplied.  The destination address for the message is
    taken from the argument to rmail, so the header re-writing which is done
    does not affect the routing of the message.

 See also

    mail(C), submit(ADM), uucp(C)