Re: libguide - [Fwd: Returned mail: User unknown]

[Tom Gilbert <gilbertt tomgilbert freeserve co uk>]

* Dermot Musgrove (dermot@glade.perl.connectfree.co.uk) wrote:
> I apologise for the length of the posting
> 
>    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> ... while talking to mail-in.pol.net.uk.:
> >>> RCPT To:<gilbertt@tomgilbert.freeserve.co.uk>
> <<< 550-See <http://maps.vix.com/dul/>
> <<< 550 rejected: administrative prohibition
> 550 <gilbertt@tomgilbert.freeserve.co.uk>... User unknown

I have bad news for you I'm afraid (good news for me though... as
there's no problem with my system).

I looked up this error message on http://maps.vix.com/dul/, and
this is what it says:

<CUT FROM WEBSITE>
If you were blocked...

If you are a mail user with a standard mail client (such as Eudora,
Pegasus Mail, or Outlook Express) and you can't send mail because you
were on this list, it is because your mail program is set to use a
mail server other than the one your current ISP provides you.
Competent ISPs usually prevent this mail relay with their own
anti-relay software, but depending on their configuration they may
check this list before they check for unauthorized relay. 

If you use an SMTP server on your own computer, or you share your
Internet connection with several other people on a LAN with a proxy
server such as Whistle's InterJet, and you can't send mail because of
this list, it is because your recipients cannot tell the difference
between your legitimate mail delivery and a spammer's trespassing on
their equipment. However, there is a very easy way to work around the
DUL and get your mail through, and even speed up your mail in the
process. 

How to start sending mail again

If you use a standard mail client, ask your ISP (Meaning the ISP you
are using at this moment, if you use more than one) what its outbound
mail, or SMTP, server name is. Then change the Outbound or SMTP server
setting in your mail program to that name. You should be able to send
mail after that. If you use more than one ISP, you may need to switch
your SMTP server setting back and forth, or one of your providers may
allow access through special means, such as checking mail before
sending. 

If you use your own SMTP server or proxy server, check its
documentation for an SMTP Gateway or Smart-Host setting, then set this
to match your ISP's outgoing mail server. What this does is tell your
proxy server to send all outgoing mail to that computer first, and
that computer will relay it to its final destination. Because the DUL
will not list your ISP's outgoing mail server, any of your recipients
who use the DUL will not stop your mail if you send it in this manner.
In fact, you may find you will be able to send your mail faster
because this server will do the "hard" work of directing the mail. 
</CUT>

It seems to suggest the problem is your mail software. I haven't come
across this one before, but I think is a kind of spam prevention,
where it makes sure you posted from you own ISP, so check your SMTP
server variable for your mailer.

In the meantime, feel free to send me stuff through the list :-)

> I have just updated from CVS and read your Changelog. On the question of
> passing " (double quotes) to sh, can't you just esacpe them with \   ?

I've now solved this. The problem was that I was sending the script on
the command-line to, for example, perl. So any quotes would be
interpreted by the shell, and not arrive safely to perl. Popen allows
shell interpretation you see...

I then fixed this by writing the script to a file, and then launching
perl on the file.

I then realised the security risk of doing so, (with a tip from
Miguel), and instead am piping the script directly into perl in a much
more robust way ;-) Its quite cool now.

> These (&amp;, &lt;, &gt;, &apos; and &quot;) are the only ones you get by
> default in XML parsers without a DTD I think.

This is my current problem. To incorporate scripts into the XML
properly, especially shell scripts, I need to embed characters such as
[, ], {, }, <, >, (, ), etc etc etc.

The XML parser currently spits these out and tells me off !

So I figured I had to write a DTD, and am now about to try and do so
(with great trepidation).

> Have you thought about using a Guide guide as your test.xml. I know that
> it is only a framework for testing your code but any docs on Guide and
> the XML format would be really handy and could grow into real docs.

Definitely a good plan, but I spend so much time writing C, I don't
get around to much XML. If anyone fancied writing some examples, it
would be great, and they could then point out any problems with the
current syntax...
 
> What is the best way to link to other guides (guide-books)? I would like
> to write my docs in little self-contained chunks and then reference them
> and link to them in an app-wide guide. I know that this is one of the aims
> of your design but how can they be found. Do you forsee some easy way to
> search for guides (with elegant failure text) in a dynamic way?

Ok, in the future, there'll probably be an environment variable
GUIDE_PATH, in the same manner as MANPATH currently works. This means
that you'll be able to link to another guide using just its filename,
or a unique ID. Its not implemented yet, but it'll be something like:

<Choice action="guide_link" target="another_guide.guide">

And that should be it!

> Have you grabbed .guide as a suffix for the guide-books?

I think so!
 
> Have you updated gTextGuide/Makefile.am and libguide/Makefile.am with extra
> line:
>     -I$(GNOME_INCLUDEDIR) \
> 
> I couldn't ./autogen.sh until I had fixed this. I guess that you don't run
> ./autogen.sh so you won't see this, you have probably fixed it any way :-)

Oops. No I hadn't done that ;-) it was building for me without it, but
it was an accidental omission. Thanks for pointing it out...

> It is getting prettier by the day, I like the HTML widget's appearance with
> the Gnome foot background. The text of links with mouse-over is now almost 
> invisible here though.

Yeah, I'm working on that. The gtk-xmhtml widget is a stubborn beast
at times!

> Are you likely to set up a mailing list or is that overkill? I wouldn't like
> to miss anything that is being discussed but then I am very nosy :-)

Not for now, I think we can use this list or gnome-devel as long as the 
traffic isn't too intense!

> Regards, Dermot

Thanks for the feedback, and for your interest. I'm really sorry about
the mail problem, and will happily help you out in correcting it if
you run into trouble...

Tom.
-- 
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