Weasel         (Peter Moylan's POP3 and SMTP daemon)
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Last updated 2020-01-03
Current version: 2.74 or higher

Weasel now supports exceptq. Please see the manual if
you don't already have exceptq installed.

     NOTE 1: This program has TNI support. What this means
     is that if you run it with the "t" parameter:
              weasel -t
     then it will get its configuration data from
     WEASEL.TNI rather than from WEASEL.INI. (If you run
     it without the "t" parameter then it will continue
     to use WEASEL.INI, just like the older versions.)
     Similarly, if you use this parameter with Setup:
              setup -t
     then the Setup program will edit WEASEL.TNI,
     not WEASEL.INI.

     To translate INI files to TNI format, and vice
     versa, get the GenINI package from the same place
     where you got Weasel.  Do NOT use the DumpINI and
     LoadINI programs that were distributed with earlier
     versions of Weasel; those are obsolete now that
     GenINI exists.

     The indication of whether you're using the INI file
     or the TNI file is a one-letter code at the top left
     of the screen, and also in the log file, but you
     might not think of looking there. To avoid
     confusion, it might be a good idea to move the
     file you are NOT using into a different directory.
     The symptoms of having a missing INI or TNI file
     are a bit more obvious, e.g. you won't have any
     valid users, which will tell you that you've
     started the program with an unintended option.

     NOTE 2: In the process of adding TNI support I had
     to modify the format of TNI files. In case you
     need to access the old-format files, I have added
     the programs OldLoadINI and OldDumpINI to the tools
     directory.

     In multidomain mode you need to convert several
     INI or TNI files. The tools directory contains
     scripts called mloadini.cmd and mdumpini.cmd that
     call LoadINI or DumpINI, as appropriate, for the
     files for all domains.

==========================================================

This is freeware, governed by the conditions of the GNU
GPL licence. See the file GPL.TXT for details. Source
code is available from the same place as where you
obtained Weasel.

Why would you want a POP3/SMTP server?  Well, basically you need
this (or something similar) if you want to set up e-mail accounts
for more than one person on your computer.  Weasel has enough
power to act as the mail server for a good-sized office or ISP,
but the installation and configuration have been kept simple
enough that it should be usable even on a home system by someone
with no prior experience of running a server.  In other words,
it is designed to be equally useful for professional or private use.

In the professional case, Weasel does well on high traffic
levels.  I have only vague anectodal evidence for that assertion,
but it does appear that Weasel has been used as a replacement
for mail servers running on other operating systems.  One of
the advantages of OS/2 and eCS over their competitors is that
they do threading more efficiently than those competitors, and
Weasel takes full advantage of that feature.  You can probably
expect Weasel to handle higher traffic levels than Unix sendmail,
on processors of similar speed.  You can certainly expect it to
out-perform the painfully slow servers provided by the company
that is trying to take over the PC world.

One problem with private use is that a mail server, to be useful,
requires that your computer be on-line most of the time, or
that you can arrange to get mail relayed from a machine that
is on-line most of the time.  Otherwise your correspondents
will be left with lots of bounced mail.  Weasel does have provision
for handling the dial-up case, but for best performance you
really need a DSL or cable connection, or (even better) a true
ethernet connection.

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PREREQUISITES

This software assumes that both INIDATA.DLL and XDS230M.DLL are
in your LIBPATH. If, when trying to run Weasel.exe, you get a
message like "The system cannot find the file XDS230M", you must
install INIData, version 1.0 or later. INIData can be found at
the same web or FTP site as where you found the Weasel zip file.

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QUICK INSTALLATION

 1. Unzip the distribution file into a directory of your choice,
    for example D:\Servers\Weasel. If you are upgrading from an
    earlier version, use the same directory so that your existing
    settings will be preserved.  (Or, if you want to use a new
    directory, copy your old WEASEL.INI into the new directory.)

 2. Optionally, you may run the file makefolder.cmd that you will
    find after unzipping.  This creates some desktop objects.
    The folder of desktop objects is useful but not essential,
    and no harm will be done if you subsequently move or delete it.
    I suggest that you move it to a tidier location, for example
    the "Programs" folder.

 3. If you are upgrading from an earlier version, run the
    Setup program. This will update older options to the current
    standard.

 4. Read the file Weasel.INF as far as the 'Installation' section.
    This will tell you how to set up the server with one user
    account.

 5. Once you have the server running and tested, read the rest
    of Weasel.INF to see how to create additional user accounts,
    how to create aliases, and how to configure the various
    other options.

Take a look at the "tools" directory for some extra utilities
included with Weasel.  Note that I am gradually removing
the utilities from the Weasel main distribution, and making them
available separately via my web site.  This is because many of the
tools are of interest only to a subset of Weasel users.

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FEEDBACK

To tell me about errors, desired features, etc., send e-mail
to peter@pmoylan.org.

To find out about new releases, you can join a mailing list - see
the manual for details.

--
Peter Moylan                                 peter@pmoylan.org
http://www.pmoylan.org/

