Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!phri!roy
From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Using Sendmail and MMDF on the same host
Message-ID: <3062@phri.UUCP>
Date: 13 Dec 87 16:19:38 GMT
References: <3047@phri.UUCP> <7807@g.ms.uky.edu> <540@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM>
Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)
Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY)
Lines: 30

In article <540@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM> brian@ncrcan.Toronto.NCR.COM (Brian Onn) writes:
> I have a question... What is MMDF?

	MMDF and sendmail both perform the same function, that of a mail
delivery agent.  Whenever mail comes into a system (from any source;
generated locally by a user or a program, from uucp, from a network
connection, etc), the message is passed to the delivery agent which figures
out what to do with it -- append it to somebody's mailbox, forward it to
another system via one of several delivery mechanisms, pipe it into a
program, reject it as undeliverable, etc.  Delivery agents also handle such
functions as logging mail deliveries, expanding mailing list names, and
implementing aliases.

	One difference between sendmail and MMDF is how the output side is
interfaced (sendmail calls them mailers, MMDF calls them channels).  In
sendmail, a separate program is executed to do the delivers (for example,
for uucp delivery, sendmail will exec uux with the right arguments, and
feed it the mail message as stdin).  In MMDF, the channels are compiled
into the delivery agent.

	The main advantage MMDF has over sendmail (at least to me) is that
MMDF supports a PhoneNet channel; PhoneNet is a uucp-like protocol which is
used to transfer mail via dial-up connections.  We have another site here
which talks PhoneMail which we want to talk to.  An alternative is
something called cmdf which is a PhoneNet mailer which interfaces to
sendmail.
-- 
Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016