Note:
If you generated your configuration with the PMDF CONFIGURE utility and answered "yes" to the question, "Are you a BITNET gateway", then a local mailer was configured for you and you need not undertake the steps discussed in this section. The usage of the PMDF configuration utility is described in the OpenVMS edition of the PMDF Installation Guide .
The first step in creating a local mailer is to create a channel table entry for the BN_GATEWAY program. The proper format for this entry is:
bit_gateway bitnet-gatewayYour mailer may not function properly if this format is not followed exactly.
The next thing to do is to place an entry for the mailer mailbox name
in the PMDF alias file. Edit the file PMDF_ALIAS_FILE (on OpenVMS this
logical name usually translates to PMDF_TABLE:aliases.)
and add the following line:
mailer: mailer@bitnet-gatewayThe use of the mailbox name MAILER is recommended (since it is in common use on BITNET) but any name can be used.
It is also a good idea to have a rewrite rule that maps the mailer name to the proper channel. This is only required if the match-all rule, . is used, but it will not hurt to have it in any case:
bitnet-gateway $U@bitnet-gateway
Once these changes have been made any mail sent to MAILER on the local host will be interpreted as a series of SMTP commands. In other words, your local mailer is now operational. You can test your mailer manually by sending a message containing a series of SMTP commands to IN%"MAILER" using VMS MAIL. For example, the following set of commands sends a test message to the local postmaster:
HELO test.system MAIL FROM:<postmaster> RCPT TO:<postmaster>
The last thing to do is to register your mailer so that remote sites will know about it. The following section explains how this is done.