[Oberon] ETHO to *nix MTA interface?

[peasthope at shaw.ca]

From:	easlab-absa <easlab at absamail.co.za>
Date:	Sat, 30 Apr 2011 02:50:58 +0200
> Isn't: 10.4.0.1 = IP and 25 = port; hence IP-port?

Correct.  Now I understand.  The accepted name for IP-port 
or (IP,port) is socket.

> ETHO talks to the ISO-stack at the application level,
> which passes the signal down to the socket-level,
> which talks to the MTA's socket, I'm guessing.

Yes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol 
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Protocol show 
these protocols at the Application Layer.  An IP address is 
in the IP layer while a port is in the application layer.  
So I would say that a socket is a multi-layer or trans-layer 
concept.  But I am no authority.

In my network, ETNO systems, Cantor and Heaviside, make 
SMTP and POP3 connections to the ISP servers.  For Heaviside, 
a connection is transmitted through Joule.  For Cantor a 
connection is transmitted through Dalton and Joule.  
Once Joule and Dalton route properly, all that is needed 
on Heaviside is a correct Oberon.Text file.  Then the Oberon 
mail procedures work.  End of story.  No further consideration 
of the OSI.

> > Is ETHO running on a Linux machine which also runs an MTA? 
>  Yes

According to previous discussion, Oberon is unable to connect 
directly to the SMTP server and the POP server of your ISP.
Hence, a straightforward approach is to have your Linux system 
provide an intermediate MTA compatible with Oberon on one side 
and with the ISP on the other side.

To minimize the difficulty, approach the objective in stages.  
First get Linux to connect to the ISP.  Then get the Linux MTA 
to connect to Oberon.  Then have messages pass from Oberon 
through the Linux MTA to the ISP.  Run Linux and Oberon  on 
separate machines to begin.  Once that works, try to run Oberon 
on top of Linux.  

> In the second case, does "the MTA" belong to you?  
> Is it on your premises?  

The SMTP and POP3 of ETHNO can connect to my ISP.  So my Linux 
systems are merely routers.  An intermediate MTA is not necessary 
in my network.  For this purpose an inexpensive consumer grade 
router could replace Joule or Dalton but the Linux router is 
more capable and flexible.

>  I suspect that LEO needs to communicate with:
> loopback/127.0.0.1, <smtp default port>/25, ...

Yes, plausible.  If you can make it work, that's good. 
Running Oberon and Linux on separate machines is certainly 
achieveable and should be easier to begin with.  

Regards,          ... Peter E.



-- 
Telephone 1 360 450 2132.  bcc: peasthope at shaw.ca
Shop pages http://carnot.yi.org/ accessible as long as the old drives survive.
Personal pages http://members.shaw.ca/peasthope/ .