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240 lines
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<TITLE>The Answer Guy 28: Email Alpha-Paging software </TITLE>
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<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<H1 align="center"><A NAME="answer">
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<img src="../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif" alt="" border="0" align="middle">
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<a href="./lg_answer28.html">The Answer Guy</a>
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<img src="../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif" alt="" border="0" align="middle">
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</A></H1> <BR>
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<H4 align="center">By James T. Dennis,
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<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com">linux-questions-only@ssc.com</a><BR>
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Starshine Technical Services,
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<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A> </H4>
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<p><hr><p>
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<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)" width="50" height="28"
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align="left" border="0">Email Alpha-Paging software </H3>
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<h4>How to build a mail to pager gateway</h4>
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<p><strong>From John DiSpirito on Sat, 18 Apr 1998 </strong></p>
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<p><strong>Hello Answerguy,
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<br><br>
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I was wondering if you could help me with something?
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I was looking for a package that sits on my linux machine
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and will do email alpha-paging.
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Im sure you know what this is, but just in case:
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<br><br>
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A person emails an account: <em>johndoe_page@somemail.com</em>, and
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it pages them...
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<br><br>
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I know they are out there, but I dont know where they are.
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Could you lend some assistance?
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<br><br>Thanks.
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</strong></p>
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<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)" width="50" height="28"
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align="left" border="0">John,
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<br><br>
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There are several ways to do this, as you suspected.
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<br><br>
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First you could just use the TAP (telephony acces protocol)
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script that was published in Frank de la Cruz' book on
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<a href="http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/">C-Kermit</a>.
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(The paging can be done as a kermit script and the mail gateway
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would be a quick
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<a href="http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/~reriksso/procmail/mini-faq.html"i
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><tt>procmail</tt></a> script to call it).
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<br><br>
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That approach requires a little bit of coding but uses
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tools you hopefully already have around. You can get
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out of the kermit coding/typing by looking at:
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<br><blockquote>
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<A HREF="http://fohnix.metronet.com/~tye/textpage.html"
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>http://fohnix.metronet.com/~tye/textpage.html</A>
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</blockquote><br>
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For more specialized tools to do this, I just went to the
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Linux Software Map search engine at:
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<A HREF="http://www.boutell.com/lsm/">http://www.boutell.com/lsm/</A>
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... selected the search by "keyword" options and typed in "pager"
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<br><br>
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I expected this to hit dozens of entries for '<tt>more</tt>'
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'<tt>less</tt>' '<tt>most</tt>' and other Unix "pagers" (that is,
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programs for "paging" through a file). However, only Xless showed
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up under that false hit category.
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<br><br>
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The first "real" hit was a program by a Joshua Koplik. The
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LSM entry for it has some typos (or is just out-of-date from
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some directory restructuring at sunsite) so I had to chase
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down the real URL with a few judicious clicks:
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<br><blockquote>
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<A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mailhandlers/!INDEX.html"
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>http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mailhandlers/!INDEX.html</A>
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</blockquote><br>
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... gets you to the right directory.
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<br><br>
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The other few links returned on this search were for '<tt>man</tt>'
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pagers.
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<br><br>
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Now I'm also sure I recently saw another news article somewhere
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about telecom/paging software for Linux so I decided to hunt
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further.
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<br><br>
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So, I hit my old standby, <a href="http://www.yahoo.com/">Yahoo!</a>
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(most of the answers I give are researched through Yahoo!). I used
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the string:
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<br><blockquote>
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"<tt>+Linux +pager +alpha</tt>"
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</blockquote><br>
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... and rapidly found a mini-HOWTO on this very topic at:
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<br><blockquote>
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<A HREF="http://ir.parks.lv/li/Resources/HOWTO/mini/Pager"
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>http://ir.parks.lv/li/Resources/HOWTO/mini/Pager</A>
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</blockquote><br>
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... by Chris Snell.
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<br><br>
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Despite, Chris' "disclaimer" (first line of the HOWTO reads
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"This document sucks.") the directions are very clear and seem
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to be very complete. I gather that it used to be listed on
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the LDP mini-HOWTO's and I'd like to see it re-appear there.
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(There are old, out-of-date mirrors of the LDP pages that
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have it and the current ones at:
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<br><blockquote>
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<A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/">http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/</A>
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</blockquote><br>
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... and at:
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<br><blockquote>
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<A HREF="http://www.linuxresources.com/LDP/"
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>http://www.linuxresources.com/LDP/</A>
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</blockquote><br>
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don't show it.
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<br><br>
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In this mini-HOWTO Chris refers to a package called "<tt>sendpage</tt>"
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(with URL's).
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<br><br>
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If you get this, I'd suggest that there are easier ways to
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configuring '<tt>sendmail</tt>' You really don't need to do any of
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that (writing custom rulesets) with a modern sendmail.
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Something similar can be done via m4 configuration macros
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and built-in features (or easily handled with a simple one
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line procmail script).
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<br><br>
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Another great set of links is on Celeste Stokely's
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widely acclaimed "Serial Ports Resources" for Unix:
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<br><blockquote>
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<A HREF="http://www.stokely.com/unix.serial.port.resources/fax.pager.html#pager.unix.link"
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>http://www.stokely.com/unix.serial.port.resources/fax.pager.html#pager.unix.link</A>
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</blockquote><br>
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(which suggests that HylaFax supports pagers in some way!)
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<br><br>
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It turns out that there is apparently a mailing list devoted
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to this topic at
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<A HREF="mailto:ixo-request@plts.org">ixo-request@plts.org</A>.
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(IXO is one of the
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other protocols that modems use to talk to alpha pagers --
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I don't know the details).
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<br><br>
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In retrospect I think the recent posting I saw on the
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subject may have been at the "Linux Weekly News" site
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(<A HREF="http://www.eklektix.com/lwn">http://www.eklektix.com/lwn</A>/). Hitting their search
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engine revealed links to:
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<br><blockquote>
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QuickPage (<a href="ftp://ftp.it.mit.edu/pub/QuickPage"
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>ftp.it.mtu.edu:/pub/QuickPage</a>)
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(in a comment to their staff)
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</blockquote><br>
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... but, oddly, didn't find the paragraph in their
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previous issue. It turns out that they didn't
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know about any of the links I've discussed above and
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were referring readers to a commercial package (of which
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there are several --- the most well-known being at
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<A HREF="http://www.spatch.com/">http://www.spatch.com/</A>).
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<br><br>
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[I've copied the <a href="http://www.eklektix.com/lwn/">LWN</a>
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staff as well. This really
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wasn't meant to "scoop" them, since I think that
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LWN is the best thing since Linux Gazette --- and
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it comes out four times as often! Every LG reader
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should also check it out! I just can't figure out
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where they get all the time to work on it.]
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<br><br>
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Finally the oldest freely available package for this that I know of
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is a perl scripts called '<tt>tpage</tt>' (Tom's Pager) a.k.a. ixobeeper.gz at:
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<br><br>
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<A HREF="http://www.oasis.leo.org/perl/exts/date-time/scripts/comm/ixobeeper.dsc.html"
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>http://www.oasis.leo.org/perl/exts/date-time/scripts/comm/ixobeeper.dsc.html</A>
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<br><br>
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Anyway I hope that helps. Obviously you have plenty of
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options (which is the PERL motto).
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</blockquote>
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<!--================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
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>Copyright ©</a> 1998, James T. Dennis <BR>
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Published in <I>Linux Gazette</I> Issue 28 May 1998</H5>
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<P> <hr> <P>
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