PMDF System Manager's Guide

The format of X.400 addresses is drastically different from the format described by RFC 822, which is what PMDF uses. Thus, a rather complex address mapping is needed to interoperate with X.400.

PMDF-X400 uses two databases to implement this mapping. Both of these databases are standard PMDF databases that are created with the PMDF CRDB (OpenVMS) or pmdf crdb (UNIX) utility from an editable text file.

Address conversion by the MIME_TO_X400 channel is normally controlled by the database PMDF_TO_X400_DATABASE. PMDF_TO_X400_DATABASE is a logical name (OpenVMS) or tailor file option (UNIX) that normally points to the database file PMDF_TABLE:to_x400.dat (on OpenVMS) or database files /pmdf/table/to_x400.* (on UNIX). The text file of rules from which the database is built is normally to_x400.txt, located like the other files in the PMDF table directory.

The address conversion process of X400_TO_MIME is normally controlled by the database PMDF_FROM_X400_DATABASE. PMDF_FROM_X400_DATABASE is a logical name (OpenVMS) or tailor file option (UNIX) that normally points to the database file PMDF_TABLE:from_x400.dat (on OpenVMS) or database files /pmdf/table/from_x400.* (on UNIX). The text file of rules from which the database is built is normally from_x400.txt, located like the other files in the PMDF table directory.

The general format of these mapping databases is dauntingly complex. Furthermore, most sites have no need for much more than a rudimentary database. In order to eliminate the need to understand the format fully in most cases, the PMDF-X400 configuration utility generates an initial set of mapping databases.

Another utility, x400_domains.com (OpenVMS) or x400_domains.tcl (UNIX), generates additional rules if you use RFC 2156 mapping tables. See Section 41.10 for details.

The rules contained in the PMDF-X400 mapping databases follow the same format as the similar databases for PMDF-MR, described in Section 39.3.1 and Section 39.3.2. Note that the Message Router field names ROUTE and USERID are not present in X.400 addresses. All of the other fields, however, apply to PMDF-X400 as well as PMDF-MR. In addition, a description of each of the metacharacters is contained in the from_x400.txt and to_x400.txt text files created by the PMDF-X400 configuration utility.