Miscellaneous: E-Mail

This section describes various CommuniGate Pro E-mail Transfer features not mentioned elsewhere.

Return Receipts

Senders can request return-receipts by including the Return-Receipt-To: header fields into messages. When a message containing a Return-Receipt-To: header field is delivered to a local Account, the Server generates a Delivery Notification message. That message is sent to the Return-Path address of the message, not to the address specified in the message Return-Receipt-To: header field.

Address Testing

If a message has the

X-Special-Delivery: test

header field, the SMTP and Local Delivery modules do not send the message to its recipients.

The SMTP module connects to all hosts the message is addressed to, then the module sends all recipient addresses to those hosts, but it does not send the message itself.

The Local Delivery module checks if the account exists, but the module does not try to apply the Account Rules to the message and the module does not store the message in the Account Inbox.

This feature can be used to verify addresses on large mailing lists: if an address contains an unknown domain name, or the host is not unreachable, or if the host rejects a user address, an error message is generated in the regular way, and can be used to detect "bad" addresses and to "clean" the mailing list.

Adding Required Headers

If a message does not have a properly composed RFC header part, the Server adds an RFC header to the message. This header contains the required fields only.

If a submitted message does not have a Date: header field, the Server adds one using the date and time when the message was submitted to the Server.

If a submitted message does not have a Message-ID: header field, and the message was received from a "trusted source", the Server adds a Message-ID: field to the message.

Legacy Mail Emulation

The CommuniGate Pro software package includes the command-line program mail (mail.exe for the Microsoft Windows platforms). You can use this program to submit messages to the CommuniGate Pro system, as you used the legacy mail program to submit messages to the sendmail MTA.

mail [-EiInv]  [-d base-directory]
     [-s subject] [-f from-address]
     [-c Cc-addresses] [-b bcc-addresses] to-addresses

• -i, -I, -n, -v

  These options are ignored; they are included for compatibility only.

• -E

  Do not send messages with an empty body. This is useful for piping errors from cron scripts.

• -f from-address

  Use the from-address as the message From: address. If this parameter is not specified, the current user name is used.

• -d base-directory

  Use the base-directory path as the location of the CommuniGate Pro base directory.

• -s subject

  Specifies the subject (only the first argument after the -s flag is used as a subject; be careful to quote subjects containing spaces).

• -c cc-addresses

  Send carbon copies to the cc-addresses; cc-addresses should be a comma-separated list of e-mail addresses.

• -b bcc-addresses

  Send blind carbon copies to the bcc-addresses; bcc-addresses should be a comma-separated list of e-mail addresses.

• to-addresses

  A comma-separated list of E-mail addresses.

The CommuniGate Pro software package includes the command-line program sendmail (sendmail.exe for the Microsoft Windows platforms). You can use this program to submit messages to the CommuniGate Pro system, using the interface of the legacy sendmail program.

sendmail [-i] [-t] [-d base-directory]
         [-f from-address] [-F sender-name] [-V envid]
         [-Oparameter] [-oparameter] [-B body_type] [address, ...]

• -d base-directory

  Use the base-directory path as the location of the CommuniGate Pro base directory.

• -i

  Ignore dots alone on lines by themselves in incoming messages. This should be set if you are reading data from a file.

• -t

  Read message for recipients. To:, Cc:, and Bcc: lines will be scanned for recipient addresses. The Bcc: lines will be deleted before transmission. The addresses listed on the command line will be excluded from the list of the recipients.

• -ffrom-address

  Use the from-address as the message From: address. If this parameter is not specified, the current user name is used.

• -Fsender-name

  Set the full name of the sender.

• -V envid

  The Envelope ID of the message.

• -Oparameter
-oparameter
-B bodytype_
-C configfile_
-N dsn
-h hopcount_
-R return
-qparameter

  These options are ignored.

• addresses

  The destination addresses (without the -t option) or the addresses to be excluded from the the destination address list (if the -t option is specified).

The CommuniGate Pro mail and sendmail commands use the Submitted folder feature.