Thomas,

Thank you, sir. It's always interesting to read your informative comments.

Best wishes.

Stephen S.

We have Pmail and Mercury (modules C, D, X) handling our email
services on an "external" network. Mercury runs on a PC connected to this
network and the mailboxes are hosted by the server. Users can send
messages directly to each other directly with Pmail username addressing
(eg. From: fredb >>> To: sallyk). Internet addressing (eg. From:
fred.bloggs@ourhost.com >>> To: webname@webdomain.com) is handled by
Mercury using synonyms.

We also have Pmail handling email on an "internal" network, simply
using direct username addressing and the mailboxes are hosted by a
different server. So, we have 2 separate networks with a PC acting as a
gateway between them.

Some of the users on the "internal" network now have to be able to
send and receive internet messages. If I setup the gateway PC to run
Mercury and handle the internet addressing (as I have done for the
"external" network) how do I get the 2 Mercury's to relay messages to each
other..? Is this possible to get 2 Mercury's to work together..? Do I use
secondary mail queues or do I need to setup other protocol modules..?

If somebody could point me in the right direction, I could probably
work out the rest, but at the moment I'm a bit stumped..!

Thanks for any guidance.

Stephen S. 

On 19 Sep 2008 12:45 Pegasus Mail & Mercury - Automated Email <NoReply@praktit.se> wrote:

> We have Pmail and Mercury (modules C, D, X) handling our email services
> on an "external" network. Mercury runs on a PC connected to this network
> and the mailboxes are hosted by the server. Users can send messages
> directly to each other directly with Pmail username addressing (eg. From:
> fredb >>> To: sallyk). Internet addressing (eg. From:
> fred.bloggs@ourhost.com >>> To: webname@webdomain.com) is handled by
> Mercury using synonyms.
>
> We also have Pmail handling email on an "internal" network, simply using
> direct username addressing and the mailboxes are hosted by a different
> server. So, we have 2 separate networks with a PC acting as a gateway
> between them.
>
> Some of the users on the "internal" network now have to be able to send
> and receive internet messages. If I setup the gateway PC to run Mercury
> and handle the internet addressing (as I have done for the "external"
> network) how do I get the 2 Mercury's to relay messages to each other..?
> Is this possible to get 2 Mercury's to work together..? Do I use
> secondary mail queues or do I need to setup other protocol modules..?

1.    Point MercuryC on the internal system to the Mercury gateway system.  

2.    Provide an account for the users on the internal system on the gateway system.

3.     Use MercuryD to download the mail from the gateway system to the internal system.  

4.    Use a domain like internal.mydomain.com on the internal server and alias all of the users on this server to this domain.  This is so internal mail is not sent to the other server.

Now when a internal user sends mail to user@domain.com that is not on the local system it goes to MercuryC and sent to the gateway server.   The gateway server will send it to the internet is requires.

You should force all mail through the Mercury/32 server and you should probably quit using the local deliver via simple usernames since if these local usernames get out on the internet they can cause problems.

>
> If somebody could point me in the right direction, I could probably work
> out the rest, but at the moment I'm a bit stumped..!
>
> Thanks for any guidance.
>
> Stephen S.

Thomas,

Thank you for your guidance. As always, constructive and very helpful. I should be able to work out what to do - like you say, I will need to move away from using local usernames.

 Best regards. Stephen.

Ok, maybe I'm not as clever as I thought:

"3. Use MercuryD to download...etc... etc..."

Surely for this to work, the gateway system needs to be running MercuryP, otherwise how does MercuryD request the users mail from their mailbox?

Thanks.

Stephen S.

Surely for this to work, the gateway system needs to be running

MercuryP, otherwise how does MercuryD request the users mail from their

mailbox?

Sorry for not being clear.  Of course MercuryP must be running for MercuryD to get the mail.

Thomas,

Thanks for your guidance, I can now see how to setup 2 Mercury's across 2 networks.

Having gone through it all, I have discovered that I don't need to run 2 Mercury's: I can write a simple gateway program to transfer CNM files from a dummy mailbox on the "external" network to the real mailbox on the "internal" network. For outgoing mail, I can setup a PMGATE.SYS gateway so that the 101 files can be accessed by the existing Mercury. It may be not as tidy as running 2 Mercury's, but it's a viable alternative (... also, I don't need to purchase another license).

 Regards.

Stephen S.

Thomas,

I did just try this, but I get a "file creation error" on the POP3 client. Why?

Any ideas?

Regards. Stephen S. 

[quote user="cadcambrafe"]

Thomas,

I did just try this, but I get a "file creation error" on the POP3 client. Why?

Any ideas?

Regards. Stephen S. 

[/quote]

A path error?  Different drive mapping?  What exactly did you do?

Hello again, Thomas, 

I loaded the pop3 server on one PC and the pop3 client on the other. Setup a new user with pop3 password and sent an email. The log files on both PC's tell me that the user was recognised, the password was accepted and one message was found. The client PC then reports "File creation error. Delivering anyway." I have only ever seen this before when the network is down or the broadband connection is lost, but the network must be live for the client and server to communicate.

???

Regards. Stephen S.

Check out the MercuryD POP3 client file and directory specs.  This sounds like MercuryD can't write to a users mail or the work directory.  This is normally c:\mercury\scratch for the work directory so make sure this directory exists.

Thanks, Thomas for that suggestion.

I'll check it out.

 Regards. Stephen S.

Thomas,

You were correct - there was a typo error in the working directory of the pop3 client.

So, everything works, the client collects from the remote user account via the pop3 server and delivers to the specified local user. Then, on the next test, it delivers to the postmaster. So, I re-test, and it delivers to the correct user, but then it delivers to the postmaster again.

How bizarre... The retrieved messages get randomly delivered to the correct local user or the postmaster..! Has anybody ever come across this oddity..?

Thanks. Stephen S.

Not sure what you are saying. 

How are you receiving the mail on the primary system?  MercuryS?   MercuryD? 

Are you using the X-Envelope-To: header on the secondary system  to deliver the mail?

Hi Thomas,

I'm using MercuryD on the primary system. The pop3 client on the secondary is delivering to a named user, so it ignores all headers.

Confession:

The problem has been solved: It was my fault, because another gateway program that I have running on the secondary network was interfering with the final delivery - it occasionally moved the message to the postmaster account for inspection. It was all a matter of timing as to which got hold of the message first and acted on it. I stopped this other gateway program and all works fine.

I do one another question: Is it okay to have the primary Mercury pop3 client and the secondary pop3 client using the same port 110..? Will they interfere at some point (if they happen to be connecting at the same time) or can Mercury handle the two connections without getting confused..?

Regards.

I do one another question: Is it okay to have the primary Mercury pop3

client and the secondary pop3 client using the same port 110..? Will

they interfere at some point (if they happen to be connecting at the

same time) or can Mercury handle the two connections without getting

confused..?