1. Introduction

ifmail has gained enormous popularity over the past few years as fidonet 
sysops are switching from the traditional DOS ftn mailers and internet 
gateway programs to a native UNIX ftn<->rfc mailer implementation. As 
the increasing number of sysops switch they find themselves in uncharted 
territory due to the complexity of adminstering a unix system. This HOWTO 
will help clear up any misunderstanding by illustrating howto successfully
administer a unix rfc<->ftn mailer using ifmail in concert with sendmail 
and INN. 

1.1 Feedback

Any feedback can greatly improve the accuracy of this document. Most of 
the source in this HOWTO was donated by other people, however the bulk
of the examples come from my own system. I am always open to suggestions, 
weither constructive or not. However, all flames will go to /dev/null, 
as I am too busy to get into a flame war. If you find this document handy
and helpful in explaining the different techniques then please by all means
send me a netmail describing your experience using it. 

1.2 Disclaimer

As usual any errors that remain are my own. This document is meant as a 
introduction to ifmail and is in no means intented as a guide to setting 
up a full flegged internet news server or for that matter, a complete e-mail
system. Furthermore, it is not my intention to address all of the sendmail
rewite rules, so I strongly recommand that before attempting to install 
ifmail you first read up on these topics.

1.3 Additional Information

Mail-HOWTO/ for information on configuration your mail services.
News-HOWTO/ for information on configuring your news services.
For INN the INN-FAQ are indispensable, as it not only answers most
                    questions, but also accompanies the installation 
                    like a HOWTO.
Serial-HOWTO/ for information on configuration your serial device.
NET-2-HOWTO/ for the configuration of the loopback-net
Network-Admin-Guide/ for the configuration of network-components, and UUCP.
UUCP-HOWTO/ for information on configuring a UUCP host.
Managing UUCP and Usenet from O'Reilly & Associates.

1.4 Where to get the latest version of this HOWTO

If you have an extremely old version of this HOWTO you should request the 
latest version from Greg Frydenlund (1:125/710 V32B) with the filename 
ifmail-howto.gz.

It is also available from the WWW at 
http://www.z2.fidonet.org/ifmail-tx/ifmail-howto.html
or via FTP at 
ftp://ftp.z2.fidonet.org/pub/linux/Fido/ifmail-howto.gz