PMDF System Manager's Guide
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Preface

Purpose of This Manual

This manual describes the structure, configuration, and use of PMDF. The intended audience is system managers who want to become familiar with how PMDF operates. In particular, this document describes many customizable parts of PMDF that can be altered to adapt PMDF to a particular environment. The reader is assumed to be quite familiar with networking concepts and the operating system on which PMDF is to be installed.

This manual does not provide a description of PMDF suitable for end users; end users should refer to the appropriate edition of the PMDF User's Guide.

Overview of This Manual

This guide is a long and technical document. If you are new to PMDF, you should skim the entire document, skipping the discussion in Part 4 of those PMDF layered products which you will not be installing, as well as the channels described in Chapters 17--27 for which you do not have any use. Once you are somewhat familiar with PMDF you can then perform the installation described in the appropriate edition of the PMDF Installation Guide, referring back to this manual as needed.

PMDF is a large and complex package capable of being configured to meet almost any task. If your site is typical of most, the initial configuration generated by the configuration utilities will suffice to get you up and running in a minimal amount of time. After you have an initial configuration, study it and use it as an example as you read the following chapters. As you become comfortable with PMDF, you will find that you want to make changes here and there, modify the behavior of some channels, or even add additional channels to your configuration. Or perhaps you will want to set up some databases, or implement a centralized naming system. By all means do so.1 PMDF, as you will find, has quite a few knobs and switches which you can manipulate and more often than not you will discover that there are not one but several means of dealing with a given issue. If anything, PMDF is too flexible.

This manual consists of four volumes, together comprising forty-one chapters:

Suggested starting points in this manual

PMDF includes a spectrum of features; the precise features of interest will vary greatly from site to site. A first reading of this manual might focus on a careful reading of Chapter 1 and Chapter 33, and then skimming Section 2.2 (omitting Section 2.2.6 on first reading), Section 2.3.1, Section 2.3.2, Section 2.4, Section 3.1, the beginning of Chapter 5, Chapter 8, the beginning of Chapter 9 (for OpenVMS sites) or Chapter 10 (for UNIX sites), the beginning of Chapter 11, if using POP or IMAP then Chapter 13, any channels discussed in Chapter 17 through Chapter 27 which you will be using (with particular attention to Chapter 23 discussing TCP/IP channels which are one of the most important sorts of channels for most sites), and Section 32.1.

Mail user agents

This manual focuses on PMDF's function as a Message Transfer Agent (MTA), to provide a uniform message distribution network that can be interfaced to multiple user interfaces (Mail User Agents, or MUA's). For further information on user interfaces, see documentation for that user agent, or the appropriate edition of the PMDF User's Guide. For instance:
On OpenVMS systems, PMDF uses the standard VMS MAIL facility as its primary user interface. PMDF also supplies a VMS MAIL-compatible user interface of its own, PMDF MAIL. PMDF MAIL is an extension of VMS MAIL which better understands network messaging (e.g., supports RFC 822 and MIME) and uses the same message store as VMS MAIL. PMDF Pine, a port of the popular UNIX mail user agent Pine to OpenVMS, is also supplied as part of PMDF for OpenVMS and also uses the same message store as VMS MAIL. Information on PMDF MAIL and the OpenVMS-specific implementation details of PMDF Pine may be found in the OpenVMS Edition of the PMDF User's Guide. PMDF also supports Gold-Mail. The optional layered product PMDF-MR provides transparent support for MAILbus agents such as ALL-IN-1 and A1MAIL.

On UNIX systems, PMDF can use as its mail user interface any such interface which normally submits its messages using sendmail or SMTP. For convenience, the PMDF distribution includes a copy of one such mail user interface for UNIX, the University of Washington's Pine.

Availability

PMDF software products are marketed directly to end users in North America, and either directly or through distributors in other parts of the world depending upon the location of the end user. Contact Process Software for ordering information, to include referral to an authorized distributor where applicable:

Note

1 There are, of course, some problems best left alone or for which what seems the obvious solution is not really a good one. When in doubt just ask.

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