Problem:
When a user sends a file attach to more than one address he has to send
one copy of the file to the server for each addressee.
Example:
A user wants to send one file attach to several recipients, so creates
several file attach messages each with the same file attachment. He then
polls the server and delivers first the mail packets and then the file
attachment. Unfortunately the server continues to accept a copy of the
file attachment for each address rather than asking the client software to
skip the file because it already has a copy. The additional copies of the
file are all renamed with incremented file extensions.
This is a waste of time on line, because only the first copy of the file
is needed, or indeed can be used. The additional copies have to be
deleted manually as they are incorrectly named, and the recipients receive
their file correctly from the original file first delivered anyhow. With
large files the wasted time on line can be very significant (eg a 1 MB
file being sent to 10 or more addresses).
With our old DOS system running FrontDoor the server would skip multiple
copies of the same file in this situation.
Is there any fix for this problem with ifmail?
Regards
Jim Holland
MANGO System Administrator
Harare, Zimbabwe