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7.3: Mail Cross Posted to News Group and BULLETIN

Mail sent to the pppl, abstracts, tftr_physics, and certain other mailing lists is now cross posted to news and BULLETIN. If you use news or BULLETIN, you may prefer to receive the information this way.

The correspondence is:

    Mailing list         Newsgroup            BULLETIN folder
    ---------------------------------------------------------
    pppl                 pppl.general         NEWS
    abstracts            pppl.library         LIBRARY
    tftr_physics         pppl.tftr.physics    pppl.tftr.physics
    tftr_news_info       pppl.tftr.news       pppl.tftr.news
    outages              pppl.outage          OUTAGE
    APS/AIP mailings*    pppl.news.aps        pppl.news.aps

(* Robert Park's `What's new' and AIP's FYI mailings.)

On Unix platforms, you can access news via Emacs (M-x gnus), rn, trn.

On VMS platforms, you can use BULLETIN.

On Mac/PC platforms, you can use various news readers (see the HELPDESK for details). You need to set your news server to news.pppl.gov.

On most platforms, you can use WWW browsers (lynx, netscape), with a URL of, e.g., news:pppl.general

The Newsgroup postings don't expire, so news constitutes a convenient archive.

7.4: Mail Attachments

Many people receive E-mail attachments encoded in various ways (base64, binhex). This note describes how users of the Unix Cluster can read such attachments. The steps are:

1. decode the attachment
2. the attachment may be directly viewable on the Unix Cluster. If not, then use WinDD to open a window on a Windows NT machine to view it. (Or else use a Mac or a PC.)

1. DECODE THE ATTACHMENT

   If you read your E-mail using Rmail in Emacs, decoding your attachments is easy. When looking at a message with attachments, type "!". This will create a buffer "*metamail*" with the decoded message. Exactly how the decoded attachments are displaying will depend on the type of attachment. For example, gif files may be displayed directly on your screen.

   The most common (and from a Unix user's point of view the most troublesome) sorts of attachment, are MS Word documents and the like encoded with binhex or base64. You should see a message stated that these have been unpacked into a directory `~/PC/incoming'.

   In order to go back to reading your E-mail in Emacs, type C-x k RET to kill the "*metamail*" buffer.

   If you use some other E-mail reading program, then you need to arrange to pipe you message through the metamail program, e.g., with metamail < /tmp/message

   Notes:

   • binhex messages can only be decoded on Solaris and Linux platforms at this time.
   • Some older E-mail software includes binhex attachments in a non-standard way that metamail doesn't understand. You might be able to decode these by running unbinhex on the message with unbinhex /tmp/message.
   • Some of you may have an application/mac-binhex40 entry in your ~/.mailcap which invokes "toaufs". I recommend that you delete this. The system mailcap has an entry which uses "unbinhex". This differs from toaufs, in that the format for the Mac resource fork is tailored to the netatalk Appletalk server, which will probably replace the CAP server.
   • If you invoke metamail directly, you may want to set the environment variable METAMAIL_TMPDIR to ~/PC/incoming. (Emacs does this for you, if it's not already defined.)
2. VIEWING THE ATTACHMENT

   Presuming that the attachment is in a format which requires MS Word (or whatever) to read, then if you are running on a X-capable desktop (i.e., an X terminal, Unix console, Mac running MacX, etc.), you can view it by running WinDD to connect to the Windows NT machine, ntsrv1.pppl.gov. Alternatively you can access the file directly from a Mac or a PC.

   • X access. If your X terminal is manufactured by Tektronix and if of sufficiently recent vintage, then execute the command

          xpsh windd -geometry 1024x768 -c -h ntsrv1 -keysym_only -nd -x & 
     

     Otherwise, execute

          windd -geometry 1024x768 -c -h ntsrv1 -keysym_only -nd -x & 
     

     on any Solaris or OSF/1 platform in the Unix Cluster. These commands can easily put on menu entries in `.twmrc', e.g., with an entry like

          "WinDD" !"xpsh windd -geometry 1024x768 -c -h ntsrv1 -keysym_only -nd -x &"
     

     This will prompt you for your Unix username and password and then connect you to a Windows NT machine called ntsrv1.pppl.gov.

     By default, the "H:" drive should be connected to your Unix directory `~/PC'. Access this via FileManager (in the "Main" group in Program Manager), open the "incoming" folder, and double-click on the file created in (1) to view it using the appropriate application.

     When finished log out of ntsrv1 by selecing File->Logoff in the Program Manager. Only a limited number of people can use WinDD, so don't hog it.

     (Note that the mounting of `~/PC' on H: is currently unreliable. We are trying to remedy this.)

     If you think that Backspace and Delete are doing the "wrong" things in WinDD, try including

          WinDD*keytranslations:#override \n\
               <Key>Delete: { 0x0E } \n\
               <Key>BackSpace: { 0xE0, 0x53 } 
     

     in `~/.Xresources'.

   • Mac access. In Chooser, select `AppleShare->PPL-ENET PH2->CLUSTER'. Connect with your Unix Cluster username and password, and you should be offered an AppleShare volume called PC. This corresponds to your Unix directory `~/PC'. Double-clicking on the file you just created in (1), should fire up the appropriate application.

     (This relies on the netatalk AppleTalk server running on tern. This is a workalike to the older(?) CAP AppleTalk software running on other Unix Cluster nodes (which for AppleShare advertizes itself as Theory and Unix). We will probably phase out the use of CAP. So if you have files in a CAP volume, I suggest you move them to the netatalk volume, by mounting your AppleShare directories in Unix and CLUSTER and dragging the files from the "Unix" volume to the CLUSTER volume.)

   • PC (Windows 95/NT) access. In Filemanager, select Disk/Connect Network Drive. Then enter a drive letter into the Drive field and

     \\TERN\USERNAME 
     

     into the Path field, where USERNAME is your Unix user name. For this to work under Windows 95, your "Windows network name" must be your Unix username. This should prompt you for your Unix Cluster password and then connect you to a Windows (SMB) file server running on tern.pppl.gov with Netbios name TERN. H: will then correspond to the Unix directory `~/PC'. You may have to configure a WINS server for this to work correctly. In "Control Panel->Network->Protocols ->TCP->WINS Server->Primary WINS Server" enter ntsrv1.pppl.gov's IP address 192.55.106.28. If you are browsing the network, you'll also need to know that TERN is in the workgroup CLUSTER.

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