Hi,
I need to setup a file distribution system between different sites of a WAN. Files that are dropped into some input directories on the source machine should be distributed into a directory on each of the target machines at other sites. One of the requirements is that between certain sites the only allowed traffic is SMTP. There is already a daemon in place that covers the sending side by polling input directories and mailing all found files as attachments to configured addresses (was thought for human recipients originally).
How would you design the receiving side?
- One could write a stripped down SMTP server that handles only this one case, strips attachments from incoming mails, and puts them into a local directory.
- One could setup a full mail server with local delivery, poll the user’s inbox and try to extract files from there.
- One could setup a full mail server with a configuration or
procmailto directly extract attachments into a directory.
I don’t really like any of these proposals because they are all more involved than setting up a SSH or FTP server. Also I don’t have experience with setting up and administrating mail servers.
Do you have suggestions or experiences to share?
The target system is Linux/Unix, but if you know something platform independent I’d like to hear, too.