Hey Rusty,

Thanks for the reply.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rusty Carruth" <rustyc@descomp.com>
To: <plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us>
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 12:19 AM
Subject: Re: PLUG: Linux Server on Modem


> > My questions are these:
> >
> > Since I will not be connecting via NIC, I do not need to configure it
and
>
> well, unless you set up your linux box as a firewall this is true.
> But, given your other email about doing firewalling/nat/proxy,
> I'd bet you are goin to set up your system as a firewall/proxy/whatever
> and want that ethernet card to work ;-)
>
> but you are right, ehternet card does not affect connecting to your
> ISP.  (directly)
>
> > all I need to do is:
> >
> I'll let others answer those.
> >
> > -->> Now what happens to my mail if I'm only connected 5 or 6 hours a
day?
> > Will it bounce or find it's way while I'm dialed in?
>
>
> Depends upon the other end.  Some (MISCONFIGURED) email transport
> agents will bounce email that does not make the next hop (usually
> to the final destination) within 4 hours (!!!).  This is, in
> my mind, completely bogus, but hey, that's for another flame..,er
> thread ;-)
>
> What WILL happen is the external MTA will attempt to deliver the
> mail.  If you are not dialed in, it will put it in the 'deferred'
> queue (or equivalent), and try again at random times (usually
> for 4 hours before notifying the original sender that its having
> problems delivering, and for 5 days at which point it will bounce
> it back to sender).
>
> Notice the key phrase "try again at random times"!  Some MTAs use
> 1/2 hour, some use 1 hour, some truly seem to use random times.
> When I was first considering this I figured I had to stay online
> for at LEAST one hour per day, and really I needed to stay on
> for 2-4 hours, and even then I could not be sure I'd keep all my
> email from bouncing.
>
> So, What to do, what to do?  Go ahead and set your email up
> as you propose, but don't tell too many people about it until
> your MX machine is on full-time (or nearly so).  Test it and
> all, but use your current email address, and either forward
> all mail to your home machine (using .forward - see man
> pages for sendmail I think) OR continue reading mail the
> way you do now (mail client on your ISP or POP or whatever
> from home).
>
> Hope that was clear, its early and I'm not fully awake yet ;-)
>

I wonder if there is a way to check to see if I'm dialed up and if not
dialup.  Maybe a shell script that is setup in cron????




> rusty
>
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