Topic: Dial-up Reports

[Stuart]

O.K. I'm new to e-smith, but it's great. I have set up a e-smith server to act as a gateway for a friends small business.  But how can I view it's dial-up usage?  Logon / Logoff times etc?

Also is their a way I can set the server to dial up at certian times during the day/night to send & recieve mail?

How could I setup the users mail to be stored on the e-smith box, while it waits to dial-up

Thank-you
Stuart

[Charlie Brady]

Stuart wrote:

> O.K. I'm new to e-smith, but it's great. I have set up a
> e-smith server to act as a gateway for a friends small
> business.  But how can I view it's dial-up usage?  Logon /
> Logoff times etc?

We don't yet have any easy way for you to view the log files. However viewing the dialup history is relatively easy. Log into the server as "root" - Alt/F3 to get a login prompt, and log in using the admin password. This command will show you all the recent PPP dialup event logs:

grep pppd /var/log/messages | less

Type 'q' to quit the less pager program, and "exit" to logout.

> Also is their a way I can set the server to dial up at certian
> times during the day/night to send & recieve mail?

Currently there is no easy way to do that, but it is one area which will be developed further in future releases. You local Linux expert will be able to find a way to do this, guided by the customisation documentation at http://www.e-smith.org/custom/.

> How could I setup the users mail to be stored on the e-smith
> box, while it waits to dial-up

I'm not sure that I understand your question. If your users set the SMTP server in their mail programs to be the e-smith server IP address, then their outgoing mail will go from their workstations to the e-smith server, and wait there until the dialup link is available. That seems to be what you want.

Charlie

[Bart Koppers]

> I'm not sure that I understand your question. If your users set the SMTP server in > their mail programs to be the e-smith server IP address, then their outgoing mail will > go from their workstations to the e-smith server, and wait there until the dialup link > is available. That seems to be what you want.

Which is quite well possible. I use serialmail for this (one other dutch guy came up with this idea, it's not mine )

Then, each time the link is brought up (either via a user-request, or via
crontab), i send and receive all mail  by calling /etc/serialmail and /etc/fetchmail from /etc/ppp/ip-up.local ..

Might work for you in this situation.

BTW, i chose to bring up the link from crontab using a "killall -USR1 diald" command.
Works better and less config-files to maintain.
Will this kind of serialmail-functionality be provided in version 4.0 ?

(I am still preparing publication of my own additions to the e-smith-server 3.x, no time..)

Bart

[Charlie Brady]

Bart Koppers wrote:
> Charlie Brady wrote:
> > I'm not sure that I understand your question. If your
> > users set the SMTP server in their mail programs to be the
> > e-smith server IP address, then their outgoing mail will
> > go from their workstations to the e-smith server, and wait
> > there until the dialup link > is available. That seems to
> > be what you want.
>
> Which is quite well possible. I use serialmail for this (one
> other dutch guy came up with this idea, it's not mine )
>
> Then, each time the link is brought up (either via a
> user-request, or via crontab), i send and receive all mail  by
> calling /etc/serialmail and /etc/fetchmail from
> /etc/ppp/ip-up.local ..

IMO there is a better way to handle outgoing mail than using serialmail. And it is easier too. Configure the server to use
an SMTP smarthost (your ISP's mail server is good):

/sbin/e-smith/config set SMTPSmartHost x.x.x.x
/sbin/e-smith/signal-event manager-misc

Then create /etc/ppp/ip-up.local containing:

/usr/bin/killall -ALRM qmail-send

Make ip-up.local executable:

chmod +x /etc/ppp/ip-up.local

> (I am still preparing publication of my own additions to the
> e-smith-server 3.x, no time..)

Linus Torvalds recommends that you release early, release often. And so do I

Charlie

[Bart Koppers]

Charlie Brady wrote:

> IMO there is a better way to handle outgoing mail than using
> serialmail. And it is easier too. Configure the server to use
> an SMTP smarthost (your ISP's mail server is good):
>

In this setup, i guess that still each time mail is sent, the
ISP is dialed (link brought up). And that's exactly what i wanted to
prevent...

[Charlie Brady]

Bart Koppers wrote:

> Charlie Brady wrote:
>
> > IMO there is a better way to handle outgoing mail than
> > using serialmail. And it is easier too. Configure the
> > server to use an SMTP smarthost (your ISP's mail server is
> > good):
>
> In this setup, i guess that still each time mail is sent, the
> ISP is dialed (link brought up). And that's exactly what i
> wanted to prevent...

If you have an SMTPSmartHost defined, then qmail won't use DNS to determine how to deliver email, it'll just try to deliver it to the SmartHost, and stick it in the queue if the link is not up. You will also need to configure your mail programs to use an IP address for the e-smith server, so DNS from the workstations doesn't also bring the link up. This last restriction might go away in e-smith 4.0.

Charlie