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Internet Exchange Documents Internet Exchange Macintosh File Handling This is the default behavior of Internet Exchange: outgoing cc:Mail AppleSingle attachments are encoded in MacMime or BinHex formats, and non-AppleSingle attachments are encoded as simple MIME or uuencoded. The same happens for incoming messages: MacMime and BinHex produce AppleSingle cc:Mail attachments, and the other formats produce native cc:Mail attachments. There are situations when the administrator may want to modify this behavior. For example, if many of the cc:Mail clients fed by the gateway are not Macintoshes, storing the header and resource fork wastes disk space. Conversely, heavily Macintosh-oriented sites may want to synthesize AppleSingle cc:Mail attachments out of non-Macintosh MIME messages, using parameters (Creator and Type) determined by the MIME Content-Type headers. This might be preferable to delegating the job to the cc:Mail client when the mail is read, by which time the information contained in the MIME headers is lost. This may make the difference between being able to open a spreadsheet with Excel 5 or being stuck with an unreadable document. To allow this choice, there are two mutually exclusive options in the Configure Options screen. The first is Force Native that strips the header and Resource fork from incoming MacMIME or BinHex messages and imports the messages as native, i.e. non-Macintosh. The alternative is Force Apple which creates an empty Resource fork and a synthetic header (based on the MIME headers) for non-Macintosh MIME or non-BinHex incoming messages, and imports the messages in AppleSingle format. For outgoing mail, the same two options apply to each peer in the Configure Peer screen. In summary: If primarily running Macintoshes and/or there is plenty of free disk space where the local post office resides, set Force Apple in the Configure Options screen, otherwise set Force Native. If a certain domain has mainly PCs or UNIX boxes, and/or wants to eliminate unnecessary traffic, select Force Native in the Configure Peer screen for that domain. If a certain domain has mainly Macintoshes, select Force Apple in the Configure Peer screen for the corresponding domain. In all other case, stick to the defaults. Where To Find More Information? Macintosh and MIME RFCs MIME Encapsulation of Macintosh files - MacMIME MIME Content Type for BinHex Encoded Files Macintosh File Types and Creators File Type and Creator Home Page Macintosh file types The manual for the Fetch utility Information about BinHex and pointers to related documents Tools For General Users StuffIt utility to handle BinHex files, by Aladdin Systems |