Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 04:00:17 -0700
From: Jim Dennis <jimd@starshine.org>
Subject: Re: Email Alpha-Paging software 

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To: johnny@area51.stjohns.edu
cc: "The Linux Gazette" <gazette@ssc.com>
X-Mailer: MH 8.6.3
Subject: Re: Email Alpha-Paging software 
In-Reply-to: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980409125729.21777A-100000@area51.stjohns.edu> 
	Message Apparently From johnny@area51.stjohns.edu 
	Dated Thu, 09 Apr 1998 12:59:31 EDT.
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 04:00:17 -0700
From: Jim Dennis <jimd@canopus.starshine.org>


Alphanumeric Pager Software
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	How to build a mail to pager gateway

> Hello Answerguy, 

> I was wondering if you could help me with something?

> I was looking for a package that sits on my linux machine
> and will do email alpha-paging. 

> Im sure you know what this is, but just in case:

> A person emails an account:  johndoe_page@somemail.com, and
> it pages them... 

> I know they are out there, but I dont know where they are.
> Could you lend some assistance?
> Thanks.
> John DiSpirito

	John,

	There are several ways to do this, as you suspected.

	First you could just use the TAP (telephony acces protocol)
	script that was published in Frank de la Cruz' book on 
	C-Kermit.  (The paging can be done as a kermit script and
	the mail gateway would be a quick procmail script to call
	it).

	That approach requires a little bit of coding but uses
	tools you hopefully already have around.  You can get
	out of the kermit coding/typing by looking at:

		http://fohnix.metronet.com/~tye/textpage.html

	For more specialized tools to do this, I just went to the 
	Linux Software Map search engine at: http://www.boutell.com/lsm/
	... selected the search by "keyword" options and typed in
	"pager"

	I expected this to hit dozens of entries for 'more' 'less'
	'most' and other Unix "pagers" (that is, programs for "paging"
	through a file).  However, only Xless showed up under that
	false hit category.

	The first "real" hit was a program by a Joshua Koplik.  The
	LSM entry for it has some typos (or is just out-of-date from
	some directory restructuring at sunsite) so I had to chase
	down the real URL with a few judicious clicks:

	http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/mail/mailhandlers/!INDEX.html

	... gets you to the right directory.

	The other few links returned on this search were for 'man' pagers.

	Now I'm also sure I recently saw another news article somewhere 
	about telecom/paging software for Linux so I decided to hunt 
	further.

	So, I hit my old standby, Yahoo! (most of the answers I give are
	researched through Yahoo!).  I used the string: 

		"+Linux +pager +alpha"

	... and rapidly found a mini-HOWTO on this very topic at:

		http://ir.parks.lv/li/Resources/HOWTO/mini/Pager

	... by Chris Snell. 

	Despite, Chris' "disclaimer" (first line of the HOWTO reads
	"This document sucks.") the directions are very clear and seem
	to be very complete.  I gather that it used to be listed on 
	the LDP mini-HOWTO's and I'd like to see it re-appear there.
	(There are old, out-of-date mirrors of the LDP pages that
	have it and the current ones at:

		 http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/ 
	... and at:
		 http://www.linuxresources.com/LDP/ 

	don't show it.

	In this mini-HOWTO Chris refers to a package called "sendpage"
	(with URL's).  

	If you get this, I'd suggest that there are easier ways to 
	configuring 'sendmail'  You really don't need to do any of 
	that (writing custom rulesets) with a modern sendmail.  
	Something similar can be done via m4 configuration macros 
	and built-in features (or easily handled with a simple one
	line procmail script).

	Another great set of links is on Celeste Stokely's
	widely acclaimed "Serial Ports Resources" for Unix:

	http://www.stokely.com/unix.serial.port.resources/\
		fax.pager.html#pager.unix.link

	(which suggests that HylaFax supports pagers in some
	way!)

	It turns out that there is apparently a mailing list devoted
	to this topic at ixo-request@plts.org.  (IXO is one of the
	other protocols that modems use to talk to alpha pagers --
	I don't know the details).

	In retrospect I think the recent posting I saw on the 
	subject may have been at the "Linux Weekly News" site
	(http://www.eklektix.com/lwn/).  Hitting their search
	engine revealed links to:

		QuickPage (ftp.it.mtu.edu:/pub/QuickPage)
		(in a comment to their staff)

	... but, oddly, didn't find the paragraph in their
	previous issue.  It turns out that they didn't 
	know about any of the links I've discussed above and
	were referring readers to a commercial package (of which 
	there are several --- the most well-known being at
	http://www.spatch.com/).

	[I've copied the LWN staff as well.  This really 
	wasn't meant to "scoop" them, since I think that 
	LWN is the best thing since Linux Gazette --- and 
	it comes out four times as often!  Every LG reader 
	should also check it out!  I just can't figure out 
	where they get all the time to work on it.]

 Finally the oldest freely available package for this that I know of 
 is a perl scripts called 'tpage' (Tom's Pager) a.k.a. ixobeeper.gz at:

	http://www.oasis.leo.org/perl/exts/date-time\
		/scripts/comm/ixobeeper.dsc.html

 Anyway I hope that helps.  Obviously you have plenty of
 options (which is the PERL motto).  


- --
Jim Dennis  (800) 938-4078		consulting@starshine.org
Proprietor, Starshine Technical Services:  http://www.starshine.org
        PGP  1024/2ABF03B1 Jim Dennis <jim@starshine.org>
        Key fingerprint =  2524E3FEF0922A84  A27BDEDB38EBB95A 

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