On the Internet

Novell Cool Solutions: Feature
By Susan Salgy

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Posted: 3 Jun 1999

Wondering how to use your high-powered GroupWise Client to send messages to people on the Internet? Wondering how your little Mailbox fits together with SMTP, POP3, LDAP, IMAP, and all of those other four-letter words? You’re not alone. This is a burning issue with our readers, who are, after all, the type of people who want to get the most bang, as our marketers say, for their buck. And who, naturally, want to use GroupWise as their vehicle on the information highway. So pull up a chair and let’s chat for a few minutes about GroupWise 5.2 on the Internet. We’ll talk about how to connect GroupWise with the Internet, how Internet Addressing works, how to use Dial-on-demand, and much more. This is the quick and dirty version, just so you can see how all the pieces fit together. After each section, we’ll tell you how to find out more detailed information in online Help and in the Administration Guides. We’ll also help you find information in the Technical Information Documents (TIDS) that are created by our friends in Novell Technical Services.

Let’s start with the basic components you need to make GroupWise play nicely on the Internet.

What you need, besides electricity
1. GroupWise system
First you need to install GroupWise 5.2. You need at least one GroupWise domain and post office as well as a Message Transfer Agent, Administration Agent, and Post Office Agent. The NetWare Administrator program must be accessible because configuration of the GroupWise Internet Agent is done through the NetWare Administrator utility. Also, all the users must have a GroupWise Client installed to be able to read or send e-mail messages.

2. GroupWise Internet Agent (GWIA—pronounced gwee-uh)
Once your basic system is installed, you can install the GroupWise Internet Agent (GWIA), which is right there on the same CD. GWIA is the star of the GroupWise Internet story: it converts mail messages from RFC-822 and MIME formats to the GroupWise message format. (Kind of like putting everything into the same language so it can be read within GroupWise.) To use GWIA you must have access to the Internet, and to access the Internet, you must connect to an Internet host computer by subscribing to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). GWIA represents the evolution of the old SMTP/MIME gateway, with many new perks thrown in, including dial-up SMTP, and support of the newest Internet standards, such as POP3, LDAP, and IMAP4.

3. Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Internet Service Providers let you access the Internet through a UNIX-based host computer and supply you with a unique IP address that identifies your network location to the entire Internet. (Note: The computer running GWIA is the only computer in your LAN that requires an IP address. Don’t go crazy and order IP addresses for everyone.)

4. Internet Protocol (IP) Address
When you contact your Internet Service Provider you will obtain an IP address (Note: this IP address must be a static IP as opposed to a dynamic IP) and fully qualified host name. Depending upon the IP address you receive, you may also need to get an IP subnet address. This subnet address may be required by your TCP/IP connectivity software.

Unless you are Rain Man, it’s almost impossible to remember long strings of numbers accurately. Knowing that, the Internet sports a domain name service, called DNS, that (for a price) assigns a fully qualified host name, such as sales.xyz.com, to a specific IP address. A fully qualified host name has at least two components: the site name (sales.xyz) and the top level domain extension (.com). The top level domain extension identifies the type of organization the user belongs to (like commercial, educational, and non-profit organization). GWIA can access DNS via a smart host provided by the ISP or by making direct queries. Depending upon the platform and the kind of TCP/IP address resolution you use, you may need to obtain the IP address and name of the DNS from your Internet Service Provider.

5. Internet connection
You’ll need a POTS, ISDN, or T1 line (more about those later) to transmit data from your computer to your ISP host computer. GWIA requires a constant connection to the host computer, or a dial-up connection if you’ve got everything configured properly. You can connect using a standard switched telephone line or a direct connection over a leased line. Your ISP will be delighted to discuss your options with you.

New connection technologies are coming (as you might expect, given the high demand). Here are a few you can ask your ISP about. Remember, your ISP is an important partner in this undertaking. Shop around until you find one that can support the things you want.

56 K modems are being supported by more and more ISPs. Check with your ISP to see where they stand on them, so you can know in advance which flavor to buy of the many coming to market. Newer 56 K modems offer software upgrades, so when the standards wars are finally over and one standard becomes, well, standard, you should be able to modify whatever 56 K modem you buy today to support it.

ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is designed for an uneven data flow, where client-to-server data flow is a small fraction of the server-to-client data. Upstream data flow can typically be measured in kilobits per second (kbps), while the downstream data flow is measured in megabits per second (mbps). In other words, this could be a good option for you if you do more receiving than sending of information via the Internet.

DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) is a digital protocol designed for use on existing copper telephone lines. DSL is sometimes called "last-mile technology" because it's only used to provide digital connections to "subscribers" in individual homes and offices, not to connect telephone company switches.

Shared T1 lines. If you can't afford the installation, equipment, and monthly fees of a T1 line, you might consider pooling your resources with others in your building. A few office parks and upscale condominium complexes are starting to offer shared access as an amenity.

6. Browser
If you ever want to read your GroupWise mail from an Internet browser (such as Netscape or Internet Explorer), make sure your browser supports IMAP4, POP3, and LDAP4, to get the full use of GroupWise’s strengths, like our favorite feature: folders. [Note: Don’t get any bright ideas about plopping a stand-alone GroupWise Mailbox on your browser and using it for your Internet e-mail only. Right now GroupWise can’t be used on the Internet without a Local Area Network (LAN).]

READING LIST
For excruciating detail on all of this, there are a couple of great reading resources for you. (Be sure to grab a drink and put out your Do Not Disturb sign before you get started: the swift-fingered writer, Brad, has churned out an extraordinary amount of primo text for you.)

1. Download the free GWIA Guide, at download_manuals.html.
2. Open the GroupWise Internet Agent help file, and click the Contents tab.

Connecting to the Internet
You have a lot of choices to make when you set out to connect your GroupWise system to the Internet. The key to understanding your options is in realizing this: the whole Internet begins and ends with telephone lines. And with telephone lines, as with many other things, the bigger the better. Think of the Internet as a giant conference call that is always open. But in this conference call, it’s only computers that are doing the talking. They speak to each other on the Internet backbone, which is like an ultra-fat telephone line, and they use a special common language called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).

The ISP Connects to the Internet
In order to access this giant conference call, you need to connect to an Internet host computer by subscribing to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). These providers are government, education, and private organizations that market Internet connections. Now be careful which ISP you choose. Although you can access the Internet using services such as CompuServe and America Online, GWIA can’t use these services for its Internet connection (mainly because the AOL/CompuServe-type providers assign you a temporary IP address when you use them, and GWIA can’t work with that kind of uncertainty). The ISP basically provides something which you can’t do on your own, so you’re happy to pay them for: hosting services.

What’s so important about hosting services? Here’s what the ISP host will do for you. For one thing, they assign you a unique IP address that identifies your network location to the entire Internet so people can reply to your messages. Also, an ISP will take a message into their huge datastore, regardless of the format, and divide it into manageable-sized SMTP packets. SMTP packets can race independently toward their destination, using little empty spaces in the Internet, and upon arriving reassemble themselves into your original message. Most importantly, they will launch these packets onto the Internet backbone using a T1 or T3 connection. This is the key thing you’re paying an ISP for, since T1 and T3 lines are horrifically expensive, and there is a limited supply. But they are the best conduit for getting messages onto the Internet backbone.

You Connect to the ISP
How you get messages from your computer to the ISP is another story. If you don’t have direct access to a T1 line at your office, you’ve got to come up with some other way to get your messages to the host computer at your ISP. You have a couple of slower (and cheaper) options for getting the data from your computer to your ISP. Again, it’s all about telephone lines. The cheapest is the one you already have: Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS—We are not making this acronym up).

Just by hooking on a 28.8 kilobits-per-second (kbps) modem, you can have your computer spill its little binary guts out onto the same telephone line you talk on. It is the slowest conduit for your data, since it is, you guessed it, the skinniest. The modem has to do one very heroic deed for this all to work: it takes the digital data your computer spews out (the 1s and 0s that are the computer’s basic language), and converts it into analog data (waves, like sound waves) that can flow through your regular telephone line. And, of course, it does that in reverse for incoming messages: it takes wavy data from the telephone, morphs it into 1s and 0s, and whispers it gently into the ear of your computer. (Yeah, yeah, yeah...you can get modems that are slower than 28.8 kbps, but at some point you’ll realize you can print out your message and drive it there faster than those things can crank.)

If you have a compelling business need for additional speed, or if you have more money than patience, your next step up is to an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) line. This is a chubbier line (so it’s faster), and it also has another huge advantage over the old POTS+modem option: it can transmit digital data directly to the ISP. No more digit-to-wave conversions (so no more modems). The result is, it is about five times faster than a POTS line (up to 128 kilobits per second). It is also much more expensive, and not even available in some areas (it’s up to your local telephone service provider if they want to wire the town for ISDN lines).

READING LIST
There are a couple of great sources for all the details of setting this up.

1. If you’re already in Help, go to the GroupWise 5.2 Administrator Help file. In the Index, type Internet. You’ll find everything there, including prerequisites, performance considerations, advanced configuration options, and much more. It will also introduce you to basic gateway concepts that will help you design the GWIA program into your system.
2. If you’re hanging out on the Web, go get theGroupWise 5.2 Internet Agent Guide.

Internet Addressing
Any time you use the Internet to send e-mail to someone outside your GroupWise system, you have to put a little extra information in the address. What you add points your message toward that person’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is a multi-digit number string assigned by their ISP that tells your message how to find another person’s computer.

Since those IP addresses can be a daunting prospect to type, you can add Internet addresses to your GroupWise Address Book, and you can create rules to make it easier to spell them out. Here’s how.

Adding Internet Addresses to the Address Book
If you just want to add people’s Internet Addresses to your personal Address Book, you don’t have to do a darned thing. Addresses from anyone who ever sends you mail are automatically stored in your Frequent Contacts Address Book. However, if you want to add them to the system Address Book so lots of people can have access to them, you have a bit of work to do. There are actually two ways to include Internet users in the system Address Book. You can either create a foreign domain, or you can add them as users to GWIA. (If you’ve already installed GWIA, it’s pretty easy to add users. If you need to install it, it’ll be more complex. We’re going to assume you’ve already installed it.)

Whether you add users to GWIA or to the post office of a foreign domain depends primarily on the number of users at the given site you want to include in your GroupWise Address Book. If you just want to add a few users from that site, you may want to add them to GWIA. If you have numerous users you want to add, you may want to add them to the post office of a foreign domain. Why this is good is that once they’re in a foreign domain, it’s very easy for you to create addressing rules that will make it simpler for people to enter those names in the To box. We’ll explain both methods, and you can choose. (We’re going to drill down on this one, unlike most everything else in this article, because this is the number one question we’ve been asked regarding GroupWise and the Internet.)

Method 1: Create a foreign domain
You can create a foreign domain and post office to hold all of your external Internet addresses. Once that’s done, you can create a public group consisting of these external addresses. Here’s what you do:

First: Create an external domain that represents the Internet.
Creating an external domain will not add an object to your NDS tree; the domain is only used to represent the Internet in your GroupWise system.

1. From NetWare Administrator, click Tools, GroupWise View.
2. Rightclick GroupWise System, click Create, External Domain.
3. Enter a domain name, such as Internet.
4. Select External Foreign as the domain type.
5. Select the time zone where your GroupWise SMTP/MIME Gateway resides.
6. Select the domain you want to link the foreign domain to. Messages to and from the external domain will be routed through this domain.

Second: Create an external post office.
Creating an external post office in an external domain will not add an object to your NDS tree; however, you will be able to see the external post office in GroupWise View as an external object.

1. From NetWare Administrator, click Tools, GroupWise View, and right-click the external domain that will own this post office.
2. Click Create, and double-click External Post Office.
3. Fill in the fields on the Create External Post Office dialog box.
4. Select Define Additional Properties, click Create, and fill in the Description field.

Third: Add external users.
Each external user must have an accessible e-mail address. Accessibility includes applicable gateway information.

1. Click Tools, GroupWise View, Right-click the object under which the external user will be created, click Create, double-click External User, click OK.
2. Fill in the fields in the Create External User dialog box (User Name and GroupWise Post Office).
3. To finish setting up the external user object, select Define Additional Properties, click Create, fill in the following fields:
NDS Name
GroupWise Name
Mailbox ID
Visibility
Account ID
File ID
Expiration Date
Gateway Access
Change GroupWise Password
Delete GroupWise Account

Fourth: Create a public group.
1. From the browser window, right-click the container that will contain the distribution list, click Create, and double-click GroupWise Distribution List.
2. Enter a unique name for the distribution list. It cannot be the same name as any other object. Do not use any invalid characters.
3. Select the post office the distribution list will belong to.

Fifth: Add the addresses to your new public group (distribution list).
1. Double-click the distribution list object in the NetWare tree.
2. Select the Members page.
3. Click Add.
4. If the users are not displayed in the left list, select the context from the list on the right which contains the User or Resource objects.
5. Double-click an object to include it in the distribution list. You can select multiple objects to add them all at one time. Be sure not to add the distribution list object.
6. Repeat the process for CC: Members and BC: Members.

Last: Let your users know about the new public group.
Send a system-wide e-mail letting your users know about this nifty new public group. This should be a real time-saver for companies which regularly send mailings to all of their clients or vendors.

Method 2: Add users to GWIA
GWIA is at the same hierarchical level as a post office. You can assign users to GWIA just as you would assign them to a post office of a foreign domain. Whenever you add a user to GWIA, a user alias is required, in addition to an individual user ID. The alias must be identical to the user's Internet e-mail address (user@host).

1. From the browser window, click Tools, GroupWise View, right-click the SMTP/MIME Gateway, click Create, External User, OK.
2. Fill in the User Name field with the user name assigned to the Internet user. This name does not need to be identical to the user portion of the Internet e-mail address, but it should be similar.
3. Select Define Additional Properties to define the External User information after the User is created. (Important: Do not select Create Another at this time. You can create other users later.)
4. Enter the Internet user's first name in the First Name field. This name does not need to be identical to the user's Internet e-mail address. This name appears only in the GroupWise Address Book.
5. Enter the Internet user's last name in the Last Name field. This name appears only in the GroupWise Address Book.
6. Fill in the remaining fields, if you like. (The remaining fields are optional, but they may be useful in further identifying each user.)
7. Click the Aliases page, Add.
8. Fill in the Alias Type field. Use the Drop-down Arrow to select the correct GWIA alias.
9. Fill in the Alias field. Enter the Internet user's fully qualified Internet address. For example, karl@sales.xyz.com.
10. Click OK twice to finish creating the user.

To send a message across the Internet to a user who was added to GWIA, just look for them in the system Address Book. You can add these users to public groups the same as in Method 1.

Now that you’ve got your Internet correspondents added to the system Address Book, you can either rely on your users to type in those names properly, or you can create rules to make it simpler for them. Based on buckets of anguished e-mail, we’re guessing you’d like to make it more, well, foolproof. Here’s how.

Addressing Rules
After the gateway is properly installed, GroupWise users can exchange messages with users of other systems across the Internet. If you choose not to simplify addressing, the syntax is: gateway:"user@host". For example, smtp:"maria@sales.xyz.com".

However, many of you have written wondering how to make this easier for users who have trouble entering a whole string quickly and accurately. Creating a foreign domain structure lets you simplify the addressing syntax required of the user. The simpler the address syntax for the user, the more you must configure the GroupWise system. With the proper configuration of links, External Foreign GroupWise domains, post offices, and user objects, a very simple addressing syntax is possible. There are three levels of address syntax complexity you can provide.

1. foreign domain:user@host
2. user@host
3. user

Guidelines:
1. To keep the addressing information of reply-messages to GroupWise users intact, you should define a rule for each post office in your GroupWise system like this:

Search Text: *@<GroupWise Domain>.<GroupWise Post Office> (e.g. *@MyDomain.PO1)
Replacement Text: %1@<GroupWise Domain>.<GroupWise Post Office> (e.g. %1@MyDomain.PO1)

2. To keep the addressing information of reply-messages to non-GroupWise users intact, you should define a rule for each gateway in your GroupWise system like this:

Search Text: *@<GroupWise Domain>.<GroupWise Gateway> (e.g. *@MyDomain.SMTP)
Replacement Text: %1@<GroupWise Domain>.<GroupWise Gateway> (e.g. %1@MyDomain.SMTP)

3. To redirect all messages without internal GroupWise addressing information having an @ sign in the To address box through the SMTP/MIME Gateway:

Search Text: *@*
Replacement Text: "%1@%2"@<GroupWise Domain>.<GroupWise Gateway> (e.g. "%1@%2"@MyDomain.SMTP)

4 Caution: When defining Addressing Rules the GroupWise administrator should bear in mind that GroupWise allows users to specify mail addresses several different ways (e.g. sending a message to MyDomain.SMTP:"user@company.com" will send a message to E-mail account user@company.com through the gateway SMTP in GroupWise Domain MyDomain, just like sending a message to "user@company.com"@Mydomain.SMTP). Adding the following rule foreach SMTP/MIME Gateway in your GroupWise system will take care of this:

Search Text: <GroupWise Domain>.<GroupWise SMTP/MIME Gateway>:*@* (e.g. MyDomain.SMTP:*@*)
Replacement Text: <GroupWise Domain>.<GroupWise SMTP/MIME Gateway>:%1@%2 (e.g. MyDomain.SMTP:%1@%2)

How this affects the Frequent Contacts Address Book
Addresses that are modified by addressing rules are added to the Frequent Contacts Address Book in their modified form. This can create a problem if the address that results from the execution of a rule can satisfy the search criteria of that same rule (or another rule) the next time that address is used. This can result in undeliverable addresses. For example, a common rule used in GroupWise 5 is one that searches for:

*@*.com

and replaces it with:

Internet:%1@%2.com

This rule is used in order to simplify Internet addressing for the end-user. Use of this rule

will cause an entry to be added to the Frequent Contacts Address Book in the format of:

Internet:<User>@<Host>.com.

However, the next time that user is addressed, the address in the Frequent Contacts Address Book is again expanded to result in an address of:

Internet:Internet:<User>@<Host>.com

and the message is undeliverable. This happens because the expanded address also meets the search criteria of the same Internet rule and therefore is subject to the replacement text in the rule.

So, to avoid that, a rule should be created at the beginning of the Addressing Rules list that consists of:

Search Text: Internet:*
Replacement Text: Internet:%1

The effect of this rule is to ignore any address that begins with "Internet:". Because rules are order-specific (they are executed in the order in which they appear in the list), this rule will be executed first on any "Internet:" addresses— and the others will not be executed. This will prevent multiple cases of "Internet:" from being added to the Frequent Contacts.

Messages that do not contain "Internet:" at the beginning will not be affected by this rule, and will be subject to being acted upon by any other rule whose search criteria it may meet.

Heads Up about Addressing Rules for large installations: from a Cool Reader
Richard N. wrote: I am the admin of one of the largest (geographically speaking) GroupWise installations in the world (domains in the USA, UK, Ireland, Germany, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand). As you can imagine, our SMTP gateway is busy sending messages to all parts of the globe. I checked recently and found that messages to over 100 different top level domains were sent in a one week period! I’m reading the TID you pointed us to about automatically adding the gateway addressing strings to Internet addresses. I thought I'd add my 2c worth.

The idea of having two rules for each post office is sound, but is a bit of a problem if you've got over 60 post offices, like us! Basically the problem with the Internet addressing rules is that you need so many of them.... What I've found is that you can take advantage of the fact that all those pesky country based top level domains (.uk .fr .de etc.) are all two characters long. You can match...

*@*.?? and convert it to domain.yourSMTPgateway("%1@%2.%3")

For some reason you also need to match...

*@*.*.?? and convert it to domain.yourSMTPgateway("%1@%2.%3.%4")

Just to be on the safe side I carried on up to....

*@*.*.*.*.*.??

But five rules is much better than the 60 or so I would need to cover all of our post offices.

READING LIST
1. For the complete, unadulterated instructions, check out the online Help. In the SMTP Gateway Help file, click Contents, How Do I, Simplify Addressing.
2. For a splendid discussion of the pitfalls of Addressing Rules, check outTID # 2927436.

Finding Unknown Addresses using LDAP
Since the Internet begins and ends with telephone lines, as you know by now if you’ve been paying the least bit of attention, there have to be ways to look up Internet addresses that are at least as easy as finding telephone numbers. And so there are, because hey, if there’s a buck to be made, someone’s bound to notice it. So what we’ve got now are some colossal, ever-expanding telephone books your computer can rummage through for the Internet addresses of your intended recipients. Okay, not real books. Virtual books, just for computers. It’s like directory assistance for computers, only instead of chatting with a nasal-toned operator, your computer gets pointed to the precise spot in all the world where your recipient goes to get e-mail. The key to it all is LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), which GroupWise 5.2, happily, supports. (Coincidence? We don’t think so.) Here’s how it works.

Basically, LDAP is sort of a directory web, a mass of linked directories that encompasses much of the world’s store of IP addresses. It does for global addresses what HTTP and HTML do for global hypertext. LDAP is a client/server protocol (like a common language, syntax, and manners) for accessing a directory service. It was initially used as a front-end to X.500, but can also be used with stand-alone and other kinds of directory servers. It is better than X.500 for three reasons dear to the hearts of developers and system administrators: it doesn’t require the upper layers OSI stack; it is a simpler protocol to implement (especially in clients); and LDAP is under the watchful eye of IETF change control, and thus will evolve in tandem with the Internet. Bottom line for GroupWise 5.2 users: since you have an LDAP client you can surf the global directory just as you can use a Web browser to surf the global Web.

There are several Internet Address books available that your computer can surf in (for a price) when looking up foreign (outside your system) addresses. Four11, Bigfoot, and InfoSpace are some examples. To get into them, you’ll need an LDAP MAPI provider (the counterpart to your Internet Services Provider, only just for these directory services). An example is Nexor’s LDAP Address Book Service Provider (located at http://www.nexor.com/). The coolest part? Once it’s all set up, you can make the Name Completion pixie search the foreign address book for you so you can just starting typing names in the To box and your pixie will do all the grunt work.

READING LIST
1. For an excellent description of how to set this all up, check out Daren Deadmond’s world-renowned article in the Vault.
2. For information on how to configure LDAP with GWIA, check out TID # 2930358.

Dial-on-demand
One thing about the telephone that we all know instinctively: the longer you keep the line open, the more you have to pay. And GroupWise can be pretty long-winded at times. Some of our readers have learned this the hard way, and we have heard many versions of the same sad tale. Here’s a typical one: David L. wrote: “We have a client that recently installed GW5.1 and just installed an Internet gateway. They are connected to the Internet via an ISDN line; their service provider charges them by the hour for usage. After the gateway was installed, they received a whopping bill from their service provider—apparently, after the gateway was installed, GW5 kept the line open. Is there a way to make GroupWise DOD (dial on demand)?

This is one of the coolest things about GroupWise 5.2. When you have GroupWise 5.2, you have GWIA. Since dial-up SMTP is a part of GWIA, once you upgrade to GroupWise 5.2, you can set a rule that governs how often it places the call to your ISP to transfer all the mail. (Note: You must configure MPR (Multi-protocol Router) to use a dial-on-demand connection to your ISP. A dial-on-demand connection will detect when packets are waiting to be sent and make the connection. You can find out how to do this in the MPR documentation, and it’s summarized inTID # 2916037.)

Don’t forget, even if you have users stuck with 386s, you can still have these GWIA perks. Just put everyone on the 16-bit Client of GroupWise 5.2, and you can have the benefits of dial-on-demand even with slower machines. And if you don’t think you can manage the 5.2 upgrade right now, there are even a few third-party options for getting dial-up services with the 5.1 version.

1. Use the Async gateway provided with GroupWise 5.1 and go to one of the following companies who can process Internet mail for you. They are: Allegro (800 2096245), DWS Computer (617 2670044), Lansoft ( 800 Lansoft),), and TelTrust (800 8264666).

2. You can purchase a product from Tenfour Systems which works with GroupWise and allows you to dial up to any ISP (800-837-0046).

READING LIST
1. Check outthis advice about how to sound intelligent when requesting dial-up services from your ISP, in our own Q&A.
2. Check outTID # 1203258 written by the good folks at Novell Technical Services, about automated SLIP/PPP Dialup. This document explains how to set up an Automated Dialup SLIP environment for the Novell GroupWise 4.1 SMTP Gateway. It provides a foundation for creating the environment and includes various working configurations.
3. For information on SMTP/MIME gateway and dial-on-demand, read TID # 2928239.

Assorted Internet Questions and Answers
Donald M. wrote: I'm from Calgary, Alberta and I'm the Network Manager for a Canada Wide Novell IntranetWare network. We are currently running GroupWise 4.1a and I am in charge of connecting our GroupWise to the Internet. We have the SMTP/MIME Gateway already, and we will be upgrading to GroupWise 5.x later this year. My question at this point is "Is there a definitive solution document that deals with connecting GroupWise to the Internet?” We use AT&T Canada Frame Relay services, and they will be opening a PVC to our intended ISP. I am planning to use the IP/IPX Gateway that ships with IntranetWare, and I heard that the MPR is required as well. Can you help me with this mighty quest?

Well, this article should steer you in the right direction. Also, you’ll find a very good discussion about using MPR (Multi-protocol Router) with the SMTP Gateway inTID # 2928239. You must configure MPR to use a dial-on-demand connection to your ISP.

Rudy K. wrote: As Novell seems to be coming out with more Internet-related features to GroupWise, how does GroupWise stand in regards to IETF compliancy?

The Internet is being governed by a body called Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which is trying to control the madness by writing standards. Novell has a seat on that board, and has long had an active role in writing those standards. Naturally, then, all of Novell’s products, including GroupWise, are based on Internet standards, including IMAP4, POP3, SMTP, LDAP, and MIME. These standards are like ground rules governing the conference call between all those computers around the world. They allow messages of many origins to flow easily on the Internet backbone.

Calvin K., Park City, Utah, USA, wrote: When I use GroupWise to send a message to someone on the Internet, the message is not word wrapped. Is there a way to force it to word wrap for the recipient so that they do not just see one long line of text?

You aren’t responsible for this, Calvin. The recipient’s browser controls how messages look on their computer, and some early versions of browsers were about as easy to read as ticker tape. Hint that your pen pals upgrade, or suggest that they print your messages before they read them. In any case there’s no setting from your end that will fix things. Here is where you need the serenity to accept the things you cannot change.

Charles H. wrote: I work for the MIS department at Georgetown County School District. We are setting up the Internet Agent for GroupWise 5.2 and are having trouble using the POP3 services. We can check POP3 mail via GroupWise, but can't send mail via GroupWise.

POP3 services only allow you to receive Internet Mail, they can’t do a darned thing about sending it.

Bob W. wrote: Let's assume I have a POP3-compliant E-mail reader (Eudora, zmail, etc.), how do I go about accessing my mailbox on GroupWise? Assume I'm connected to NetWare 4.11.

POP3 (Post Office Protocol, version 3), is a UNIX protocol. With GWIA installed, you can use it as a POP3 Agent, which will bring the contents of your GroupWise Mailbox into an Internet mail reader, like Eudora Pro, etc. The skinny about setting this all up is in the GWIA Help file. Just click Index, double-click POP3 (GroupWise Internet Agent), then click Set Up a POP3 Client (Overview). Once again, Brad comes through with all the nitty-gritty details.

Darrell wrote: With GroupWise 5.2 I believe that you can use the Internet to link up Domains and POs. Can you? And if so where can I get information on how this is done?

Yes, you can. Using pass-through addressing, you can merge and administer other GroupWise systems anywhere on the Internet. GWIA can be used to combine separately administered GroupWise systems into one centrally administered system. The domain database ((WPDOMAIN.DB) stores the information about the GroupWise system. When you add an Internet Agent, for example, that program and its configuration settings are written to the domain database. GroupWise then propagates changes to all domain, post office, and user databases within its administered system. To find out all the details, go to the Administrator Help Index and look up Combine GroupWise Systems.

M.A.M. wrote: Have a client with NT 4.0, one Internet IP address, and Proxy server as a firewall to the Internet (Border Services not available yet). Require a method to have Web mail come though the NT Proxy server to GroupWise 5.1 on a NetWare 4.1 server. Approx. 100 users/mail boxes with internal mail only. How do I provide them Internet mail via the NT Proxy server?

You can still do this through the proxy server as long as you can ping the server where SMTP resides. You must also allow e-mail through port 25 on the firewall. Novell Technical Services can help you set this up.

Tony C. wrote: Our company uses MsMail, and I am using Outlook 8.0 as my client. However, I would like to use GroupWise. So, I installed the GroupWise client (32-bit). After the GW installation, everything was fine when using GW and Outlook. Except for in Outlook, all the received Internet mail cannot be read in any way. Inside Outlook, once I click the mail, the system calls up GroupWise and then shows me a message "cannot open the item." Then returns to Outlook. Other mail from the MsMail system works fine as usual. Please kindly help me to read the Internet mail again. Thanks a lot.

Here’s what happened. When you try to use Outlook and GroupWise together, you will run into problems like this because of problems in Microsoft’s MAPI (Messaging API) specs, which have certain proprietary components that won’t allow Outlook users to work with GroupWise (or Lotus’s Domino, or Netscape’s Messenger). Here’s what you do to undo the damage:

Click the Mail and Fax icon in the Windows Control Panel. Click the Show Profiles button. You will see a drop-down box with the following title: "When starting Microsoft Exchange, use this profile." After you have installed the GroupWise 5.1 32-bit client, the value in this drop-down box will read: "Novell Default Setting."

Click the arrow on the drop-down box and choose MS Exchange (you might see "Preferred Customer"). Reboot the machine. You may now read the mail in your Outlook mailbox. You will not be able to utilize MAPI-enabled applications with GroupWise. Sadly, you won’t be able to use GroupWise as long as everyone else is using MS Mail.

Doug C., Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA, wrote: We are using IntranetWare 4.11, Webserver 3.1, and GroupWise 5.1. I would like to have input from an HTML form being sent to a GroupWise mail user. We have done this on our UNIX Webserver using a cgi script (Formmail.pl) processing thru the mail server (Sendmail). I am not very familiar with GroupWise and asking the mail process to take info and send it to a user. Do you know or have a solution? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Just make your perl scripts point to a user at GWIA and the result of the script will appear in that user’s Mailbox.

Internet Gotchas
Bad Vacation Rules
You can wreak significant havoc by setting vacation rules that are slightly wrong. We, as you can imagine, have been the unwilling recipients of truckloads of SPAM this way. Even though we have an abnormally high tolerance for errors, we must admit to a few choice epithets along the way. Here is a little primer on setting vacation rules that don’t make people wish you were dead, not just gone. This is also covered in the GroupWise Guide called Set Up a Vacation Rule, in case you need a quick reminder online while you’re creating the rule.

1. Click Tools, Rules, New.
2. Type a name for the rule (like Vacation).
3. Make sure New Item is selected and that Received is checked. This sets the rule to launch every time you receive an item.
4. Select the Appointment, Task, and Note Item Types check boxes.
5. Click Define Conditions.
6. Click the arrow by the first box, then click All Fields.
7. Click Due/End Date, then click OK.
8. Click the = pop-up list, then click >= On or After Date. A calendar button will appear next to the second text box.
9. Click the calendar button.
10. Select the first day you will be gone, then click OK.
11. Click the End pop-up list, then click And. This opens another line for additional conditions. For an item to trigger the rule, it must meet the conditions of both filter lines.
12. Click the arrow next to the first box on the second line, then click Due/End Date.
13. Click the = pop-up list, then click <= On or Before Date. Yep, there’s that calendar button again.
14. Click the calendar button.
15. Click the last day you will be gone, then click OK.

A description of the filter you have created appears above the filter lines. Check to make sure it looks correct.

16. Click OK to return to the New Rule dialog box.
17. Click Add Action, then click Delete/Decline. This tells the rule to decline all appointments, notes, and tasks scheduled during the range of time you will be out of the office.
18. Type a message to the sender, then click OK. You may want to explain that you are gone and say when you will return. This message will appear in the sender's Properties for the item. (Note: It is generally considered rude to write things like “Neener, neener, I’m lying on a beach in the Bahamas and you are sitting in a gray chair with wheels reading all about it.”)
19. Click Save. The rule is added to the Rules list box. The check in the box indicates that the rule is active. When you return, you should click the check box to deactivate the rule. Try to remember to do this before you make your rounds to flaunt your tan-line.
20. Click Close.

Making the Vacation Rule work for Internet mail only
John D., Arlington, Virginia, USA, wrote: I have run into a curious problem in trying to set up a rule that will generate an automatic e-mail response when I am away on vacation. Since everyone in my office will already know that I am away, I only want the message to be generated in response to messages coming from outside the office. I began work on the rule one night using GW5.1 Remote. One of the fields available for the rule was Network ID. I thought this would be the perfect solution. I put in Network ID must contain SMTP and expected to be done. When I got to work then the next morning the rule was not in place (indeed, there was a bit of a glitch in the transfer from remote, so I wasn't too surprised). I then tried to recreate the rule while I was at the office and was surprised to find that Network ID was not an available Field name!

Just to make sure I was not going crazy, I checked out the field names available on Remote and Network ID is still there. I again set up a rule using this field and connected with my office. Everything looks fine (I haven't been back into my office yet, so I can't tell you what is going in there). But, now, I try to edit the rule, I get an error as soon as I click on the edit button that GW has terminated improperly and GW terminates.

Assuming you named your SMTP gateway so it delivers messages with a view name of “Internet” (which is the default), try setting up your rule to send your vacation message to all incoming e-mail with “Internet” in the From line.

Turning off those annoying Status Reports so you don’t drive everyone crazy
Steven B. wrote: Our Internet mail is sending out receipts when mail is opened in our office. The messages go to the sender and come from daemon@ahaf.org. This is a problem for people who are on e-mail lists because every time they open a mailing from the list a notification is sent to everyone on the list. How do I turn this notification off?

1. Open NWAdmin.
2. Highlight the SMTP Gateway.
3. Click File, Edit, Optional, Outbound status level.
4. Change the Outbound Status level to Undelivered.

One More Thing
This is all fine and dandy if you always have access to your desktop computer or laptop, and can use your full-figured GroupWise Client to do everything. However, for you road-warriors and others who live in the fast-lane and have to be adaptive, the GroupWise WebAccess Client is just what you need. It allows you to use any Web browser to access the contents of your Mailbox, send items, schedule meetings, and many other things. Watch for an article about it, coming soon.

GroupWise-on-the -Internet Glossary
ADSL
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A new technology that allows huge amounts of data to be sent over existing copper telephone lines (POTS). ADSL supports data rates of from 1.5 to 9 Mbps when receiving data (the downstream rate) and from 16 to 640 Kbps when sending data (the upstream rate).

DNS
Domain Name Service. An Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are words, they're easier to remember than numbers. But don’t be fooled: the Internet is really based on IP addresses which are always numbers. Every time you type in a domain name, a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the domain name www.gwmag.com would be translated to its actual IP address, 207.173.193.121. (Go ahead, try it. Type that number string in your browser’s Location field and presto—there’s Cool Solutions. Now try typing the numbers as fast as you can, three times in a row. See why domain names are so cool?) The DNS system is, in a twisted way, its own network. If one DNS server doesn't know how to translate a particular domain name, it asks another one, and so on, until the correct IP address is finally found. The cool thing is GroupWise can do its own DNS name resolution, so you don’t have to have a smart host on hand to pick up the slack.

DSL
Digital Subscriber Line. This is a broad term that refers to all types of digital subscriber lines. The two main categories are ADSL and SDSL. DSL technologies use modulation schemes to pack data onto copper wires. They are sometimes referred to as last-mile technologies because they are used only for connections from a telephone switching station to a home or office, not between switching stations.

GWIA
GroupWise Internet Agent. Provides GroupWise users with the ability to send and receive Internet e-mail messages and attachments. Key features include SMTP/MIME service, POP3 service, support for LDAP and IMAP4, and SMTP Dialup service. Other cool things: Multiple threading allows more than one send or receive process to be running concurrently. Internet headers are automatically placed in attachments to incoming Internet messages. Multiple foreign names allow you to implement a firewall or central mail hub. Full GroupWise addressing is supported, including system groups, nicknames, and individual users. You can easily add Internet users to the Address Book. Using pass-through addressing, you can connect with, merge, and administer other GroupWise systems anywhere on the Internet. It also provides security capabilities called Access Control which lets administrators control inbound and outbound messages. It even provides inbound and outbound tracking of messages to let administrators keep tabs on how GWIA is being used in their organizations. It can function as a Mail Hub/Smart Host server, which allows it to resend messages that it received which should go to another host. The NLM version is SNMP-compliant, and provides SMP support, which lets GWIA take advantage of one server with several processors. It does not require a smart host, since it can perform DNS name resolution directly and is MX record aware. Whew.

IETF
Internet Engineering Task Force. They define Internet mail so it doesn’t lapse into bedlam. They do this by defining standards and recommendations, statements of common practice, etc. Only a few of the protocols used in Internet mail are full IETF standards, but the others are often stable enough to be treated as standard by people writing Internet mail software. Most of the major software companies participate in IETF Working Groups, including Novell, which has been an active player for many years.

IMAP4
Internet Message Access Protocol, a protocol for retrieving e-mail messages. The latest version, IMAP4, is similar to POP3 but supports some additional features. For example, with IMAP4, you can search through your e-mail messages for keywords while the messages are still on the mail server. You can then choose which messages to download to your machine. Like POP3, IMAP uses SMTP for communication between the e-mail client and server. When you have GWIA running in IMAP4 mode on your GW5.2 message server, you can roll out an IMAP4 client like Communicator and your users can get their e-mail from the IMAP or WebAccess no matter where they are.

IP Address
Internet Protocol Address. A multi-number string that represents your Mailbox’s exact location on the Internet. Networks use the TCP/IP protocol to route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be 0 to 255. Within an isolated network, you can assign addresses at random as long as each one is unique. However, when you connect a private network to the Internet, you must use registered IP addresses (called Internet addresses) to avoid duplicates.

ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network. This is a digital line that is about five times faster to use than a POTS line, when connecting to the Internet. Instead of a modem, ISDN uses a Terminal Adapter (TA) that connects to computer and phone interfaces.

ISP
Internet Services Provider. Private companies that provide hosting services for you, so you can access the Internet from your home or your work.

LDAP
Lightweight Directory Addressing Protocol. A set of protocols for accessing information directories. LDAP is based on the X.500 protocol, but is a lot simpler. And unlike X.500, LDAP supports TCP/IP, which is necessary for any type of Internet access. Because it's a simpler version of X.500, LDAP is sometimes called X.500lite. LDAP makes it possible for GroupWise 5.2, running on virtually any platform, to obtain directory information, such as e-mail addresses.

MIME
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. An IETF standard that dictates the format of e-mail messages and headers.

MPR
Multi-protocol router. This is the puppy that lets you configure your system to dial on demand. That way, you only have to place a call to your ISP when you have packets to send, rather than paying for a constant connection.

POP3
Post Office Protocol. A UNIX protocol used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. Most e-mail clients use the POP protocol, although some can use the newer IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). GroupWise 5.2 supports both. There are two versions of POP. The first, called POP2, became a standard in the mid-80s and requires SMTP to send messages. The newer version, POP3, can be used with or without SMTP. It allows mail from GroupWise (or any other POP3-compliant e-mail package) to be read in an Internet mail reader, like Eudora Pro.

POTS
Plain Old Telephone Service. The copper wire line that you’ve come to know and love as your normal phone line.

RFC-822
Request For Comments-822. A message format that is not an IETF standard yet (so they’re still requesting comments), but which is popular and has become a de facto message format standard. (That’s the way the IETF works—they see what most people are using, and then codify it into a standard, so the Internet can avoid becoming a Tower of Babel, where no one can talk to anyone else.)

SDSL
Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line, a new technology that allows more data to be sent over existing copper telephone lines (POTS). SDSL supports data rates up to 3 Mbps. SDSL works by sending digital pulses in the high-frequency area of telephone wires. Since these high frequencies are not used by normal voice communications, SDSL can operate simultaneously with voice connections over the same wires. SDSL requires a special SDSL modem. SDSL is called symmetric because it supports the same data rates for upstream and downstream traffic. A similar technology that supports different data rates for upstream and downstream data is called asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL). ADSL is more popular in North America, and SDSL is being developed primarily in Europe.

SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A protocol for sending e-mail messages between servers. Most e-mail systems that send mail over the Internet use SMTP to send messages from one server to another; the messages can then be retrieved with a mail client using either POP3 or IMAP. In addition, SMTP is generally used to send messages from a mail client to a mail server. This is why you need to specify both the POP3 or IMAP server and the SMTP server when you configure your GroupWise system. It is the transport language that tells computers how to move messages around on the Internet. Think of a mail truck. It’s not the mail, it’s the way you move the mail around without losing it.

T1 line
A dedicated phone connection supporting data rates of 1.544 megabits per second. A T1 line actually consists of 24 individual channels, each of which supports 64 kilobits per second. Each 64 kilobit-per-second channel can be configured to carry voice or data traffic. Telephone companies allow you to buy just some of these individual channels, which is called fractional access. T1 lines are a popular leased line option for businesses connecting to the Internet and for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connecting to the Internet backbone. The Internet backbone itself consists of faster T3 connections. T1 lines are sometimes referred to as DS1 lines.

T3 line
A dedicated phone connection supporting data rates of about 45 megabits per second. A T3 line actually consists of 672 individual channels, each of which supports 64 kilobits per second. T3 lines are used mainly by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connecting to the Internet backbone and for the backbone itself. T3 lines are sometimes referred to as DS3 lines.

TCP/IP
Transmission Control Protocol. The suite of communications protocols used to connect hosts on the Internet. TCP/IP uses protocols, the two main ones being TCP and IP. TCP/IP is built into the UNIX operating system and is used by the Internet, making it the de facto standard for transmitting data over networks. Even network operating systems that have their own protocols, such as Novell NetWare, also support TCP/IP.

TID
Technical Information Document. Short documents capturing troubleshooting incidents, written by the people who answer the phones when you call Novell Technical Services for Customer Support. TIDS are written for every significant problem that customers call about, and contain a wealth of practical, case specific information. You can find them in the Novell Home Page KnowledgeBase, at http://support.novell.com/search/kb_index.html. Just type in the TID number or a keyword (like GWIA), and you’ll find listings of problems and their resolutions.