What is lonex?

[Steven M. Schultz]

Hi -

> From: "Danny R. Brown" <sysyphus at crl.com>
> Subject: What is lonex?

	LONEX _was_ "Laboratory Office Network EXperiment" - a project
	I worked on for many years (we started with V7) and which just ended 
	a couple or three years ago.  We used 11/44s and 70s right up till 
	the end - by which point they were all running 2.11BSD.  It was a 
	really neat system - had a common user namespace (YP before there was 
	YP;-)) amoungst all systems, a (for the time) spiffy text-mode menuing 
	interface to shield users from the fact it was Unix and so on.

>   I've been playing with the mail system. Mailing to root brings up
>                  can't find usr/lonex/xmail

	The sendmail.cf as distributed in the 'GENERIC' system kit wasn't
	cleaned up enough.  That reference to a local mailer that I use
	should have been removed.

	Several things to note:

	1) the sendmail.fc file does not exist - on purpose.  You'll need to
	   perform step 2 and then do a "/usr/lib/sendmail -bz" to freeze
	   (pre-process for faster loading) the config file.

	2) the sendmail.cf file is not suitable for use without customizing
	   (filling in the domain name, relay system, etc).

	3) The aliases database (/usr/lib/aliases.{dir,pag}) are not present,
	   on purpose.  You'll want to edit /usr/lib/aliases to suit local
	   tastes and then do "/usr/lib/sendmail -bi" to create the dbm
	   aliases database.

> This in itself is not a problem, as I only tried this to see what would
> happen. However, I am curious as to what the lonex directory is (was).

	It's a directory I keep local works of art such as the local mailer
	'xmail' which knew the details about routing mail within the "Office
	Network" we ran.

> It does not appear in my listing of the contents of tape 2.

	It shouldn't have been there at all.

	You should have something like:

# Mlocal,       P=/bin/mail, F=rlsDFMmn, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
Mlocal, P=/usr/lonex/bin/xmail, F=lsSDFMmn, S=10, R=20, A=xmail -f $g $u

	in sendmail.cf.  Simply reverse the commented status of the two
	lines to be:

Mlocal,       P=/bin/mail, F=rlsDFMmn, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
# Mlocal, P=/usr/lonex/bin/xmail, F=lsSDFMmn, S=10, R=20, A=xmail -f $g $u

	And you'll be all set.

	Steven Schultz
	sms at wlv.iipo.gtegsc.com