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Before you run the automatic configuration generator, you should know about your network configuration, as well as what input needs to be supplied to the PMDF configuration utility.
The PMDF configuration generator attempts to provide default values to the prompts. These defaults are picked up, whenever possible, from your system environment. |
3.1.1 Network Configuration
The automatic configuration generator is capable of creating rewrite
rules and channel blocks for the local system or OpenVMS cluster, as
well as TCP/IP networks (and, in the case of the command line utility,
DECnet networks) that are connected to the local system. You can have
any or all of these networks on your system.
The command line PMDF configuration utility looks for these networks and tries to determine what you have. If PMDF CONFIGURE provides an incorrect default, or no default at all, you can override the default network type.
PMDF CONFIGURE only discovers network packages that are running on the node where you are executing the procedure. If you are configuring PMDF on an OpenVMS cluster, you should run this procedure on a node that is running all your network packages. If your network packages are spread out across different nodes in your OpenVMS cluster, make sure to provide PMDF CONFIGURE with all your network packages, even though they might not show up by default. |
If you want PMDF to use network facilities that are not all resident on a single member of your OpenVMS cluster, you will have to provide PMDF with access to an OpenVMS queue on each system that has a network facility that you want PMDF to use. After you generate your configuration file with the PMDF configuration utility (using either the web-based or command line version), you will need to add the queue
channel keyword
to the channel definitions for network facilities that are not accessible from your default PMDF service queue (normally MAIL$BATCH). (See the PMDF System Manager's Guide for additional information on the queue
channel keyword.)
3.1.2 Selecting a System Name
Before you configure PMDF, you should give some thought to what your
official system name should be. This is not just a matter of picking a
name for your system. If you want to communicate with systems on the
Internet, your system needs to be registered as a member of some
network domain. In order to be eligible for registration, you must have
a connection to a system on the Internet that is able to perform name
server functions for you.
If you are using PMDF in an isolated (non-Internet) application, you can pick any system name you want. However, remember that networks have a way of growing and becoming more visable. At some point in the future, you could regret a careless decision about naming conventions you made earlier. Try to pick a sane, sensible name that is appropriate for your users, system, and site.
In many environments, a system cannot be referred to by a single name. While this is undesirable, it is quite common. For example, a homogeneous OpenVMS cluster is usually configured for PMDF with a single official host name. However, each OpenVMS cluster member's name should be recognized as synonymous with the local host. Mail that originates from any node in the OpenVMS cluster will always be marked by PMDF as coming from the official host name (regardless of which node originated the message, or handled the network connection).
Many sites use a different name for DECnet than they do on the Internet. Again, a single name must be chosen as the official local host name. That name is usually the fully qualified Internet domain name. However, if you are not on the Internet, or if you are not using TCP/IP domain names, you could choose your DECnet name as the system name.
3.1.3 Authentication and Security
There are various contexts when users might need to authenticate
themselves (supply a password). Some of these situations are:
PMDF supports performing authentication against various authentication sources, such as the SYSUAF (the PMDF password database), PMDF user profiles (PMDF MessageStore or PMDF popstore account profiles), or even an LDAP directory. The PMDF default (which allows authentication against any PMDF user profile, the PMDF password database, or SYSUAF passwords) is a good starting point for most sites. (See the PMDF System Manager's Guide for further information on PMDF authentication and security configuration.)
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