Installation

Known problems
Reactions
Version

Maillita is a FREE application working as a server between a remote mailgate and a local mailprogram running on Window95 and Windows NT4.0. It was designed in order to disallow other people to see what x-mailer you use, protecting your privacy over the Internet and creating a simple mailgate for a LAN.
It also shows you how many mails you have sent in total and when the last action has been performed.

I have written this program for own use and don't want to harm anyone / anything with its purpose.

FUNCTIONS

It can replace any entry in the header or body of the mail. For example the X-Mailer and Message-ID:

for example:

Message-id: <3.0b16.32.19960912134123.009275f0@.....>
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; I)
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

can be changed to:

Message-id: <19961017.203142.0.9(32)@127.0.0.1>
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Xmail 2.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

It also possible to add extra X-headers in your emails, for example to make it possible to filter on personalities with any mailprogram! Or add an extra X-header to enter your organisationname to the mailheader.

The program acts as a server on a IP-port, so it can be used as an email-gate on small networks, with only one IP-number, not only hiding all other local IP-numbers, but also enabling a LAN to connect by email: Maillita can create a mailgate on a local system (I haven't tested this to often, but it seems to work). All program settings will written to the regdatabase to the Filtermail-Key

DOWNLOAD

The executable is free and does not require any registration. However if you want to send me at least one e-mail as soon as you use it, to let me know that you use the program. By this you can inspire me to create new versions and other free software. The mailadress and homepage can be reached from the executable (by pressing the label with Mailto or URL) at any moment in order to look for new versions or give feedback.

The current release is: 1.1 from 4 November 1996
Download this version

The current beta release is: 1.2 beta 7 from 4 December 1996
Download this beta version

NEW FEATURES / UPDATES

I'm willing to program anything you'd like to have added to the source ! If you have any wishes, comments or request, send them to me.

Wishes and questions for future versions

- Enhanced helpfile / installation guide;
- Automatic decoding of text and graphic files.
- Make RANDOM taglines;
- Add hostname (not ip) in Message-Id;
- secured with password lock;

Version 1.2 beta 7 (dd. 4 December)

- Updated Filteractions, ONE stupid mistake;
- Updated attachements with Eudora (please report any error!);
- First tests with Hostname lookup (from IP) didn't work;
- Adapted Logfile, so it realy doesn't write to disk;
- Crash safe restart notice an activate running Maillita (just one instance running).


KNOWN  PROBLEMS:

- Attachements from News Xpress don't come through. Is difficult to change due to News Xpresses handling of mail
- Please test / check once in a while your attachements with all clients, for an error occured and I didn't notice it !

Version 1.2 beta 6 (dd. 24 November)

- Updated Filteractions, filters work in the selected part of the message ;
- Updated Filter edit (except the Message-Id);
- Speeded Registry entries;
- Added "Mouse-over" help.


KNOWN  PROBLEMS:

- Attachements from News Xpress don't come through. Is difficult to change due to News Xpresses handling of mail

Version 1.2 beta 5 (dd. 23 November)

- More verbose process tracking to a diskfile (a textfile for input in f.e.Excel);
- edit the filters (except the Message-Id);
- (on request) Listen / Listen NOT back in the source;


KNOWN  PROBLEMS:

- Filters work in WHOLE message body (this will be fixed in next beta);
- Attachements from News Xpress don't come through.

Version 1.2 beta 4 (dd. 20 November)

This version is released because I'm very busy and have promised a lot of users to come with a new (beta-) release. Have fun!

- The ability to add taglines to the bottom of every message;
- Pre-defined fields in Maillita for certain known message fields;
- Speeded up the program by using better PChars;
- Changed port settings so it can run on the normal port 25 (no difficult settings anymore!);
- Listen / Listen NOT is deleted (not functional);
- Configure for all mailprograms and news programs;
- New "look".




KNOWN  PROBLEMS:

- not all filtertypes are functional;
- editting the filters is not possible;
- Message-Id is fixed (not realtime created from time and date);
- ! ! Filters work in WHOLE message body ! !.

Version 1.1 (dd. 4 November)

- adaption in closing connections from and to maillita server;
- cleaning up source.

Version 1.0 (dd. 24 Oktober)

- end of beta test stadium.
- official Internet release

Maillita can file all actions with the program to a logfile on disk. This logfile can be processed with Excel to a worksheet to do additional statistics.The logfile is standard configured with these fields:

Connection, Time, Date, Host-IP, Sender, To - Cc - Bcc adresses



Connection 17:32:58 23-11-96 137.224.177.66 maillita@dds.nl somebody@somewhere.com,somebody.else@somewhere.else.com

If not interested in this logging, simply disable logging to disk.

INSTALLATION

Server settings

To install the application, simply start the exe file and fill in the settings according to the fields. I recommend to use a LOCAL SERVER PORT same as defined in the SERVICES file: 25 (standard for SMTP). If you experience ANY problems, change the LOCAL SERVER PORT to any port number higher than 1000.

Changing the SERVICES file
If you choose a port other than 25, don't forget to change your SERVICES-file in your Windows directory to the port you set in Maillita. After changing this setting, restart you X-mail program.

For example the smtp-entry in the SERVICES-file can be changed like:

smtp 25 /tcp mail

to:

smtp 2025 /tcp MAILLITA

Filtersettings

The filter works very simple by checking an incoming mail- header for a requested string changing it into an other string. To keep high performance and a small and simple executable, there is no checking on WRONG settings for these variables: it is supposed to be simple, small and fast, therefore no extra error-checks. I have worked with it for about 2 months now (and some friends also) and have not had ONE error from it!

How to fill in the variables? Most X-mail programms like Eudora, Netscape Mail provide their header with a field called: X-Mailer and Message-ID. These strings need to be filled in (case sensitive). If the case doesn't match, no replacement shall be done. The ZIP-file also has a REG-file provided with the most common settings (RUN the REG-file to introduce the settings in the REGDATABASE).

In the future versions a new Filter definition is implemented. See below.

Mailclient settings

As the maillita server is set, you need to setup the mailclient. Adapt the SMTP-host or the SMTP gateway to the setting for LOCALHOST (IP-adress: 127.0.0.1) This way the mailclient works through the maillita server.

Overview and example:

-1- Editting settings in Maillita

To make sure the server is listening on the same port as the mailclient speaks, enter the SERVER Port as you specified in the SERVICES file for SMTP: 25 This way your mailclient and Maillita shall communicate together.

Set up the Search, Replace and Message-ID field in this way:

Search: X-Mailer:

Replace: X-Mailer: Mymail [choose own name after : ]

Message-Id: Message-

-2- Adapting the SMTP-server in the mailclient

If you use Netscape, Netscapes SMTP-server needs to be your localhost-adres, and can be entred as 127.0.0.1 or the IP-adress from your system if you don't have a flexible IP-adress.

PROBLEMS

For all versions

The LISTEN / LISTEN NOT function won't operate with Win NT. Maillita has been tested with NT4.0, and works fine, just not THAT function. Closing sockets is not done properly with every mailclient; this is being studied and will be improved.

For version 1.2 beta 5

REACTIONS

The program is totally free, no payment or what so ever (unless you want that), for questions and remarks you like you can send an e-mail to: maillita@dds.nl If there is a lot of interest and wishes, new functions can be programmed.

VERSION INFO

Maillita 1.1 (32) and Maillita 1.2 beta 7

Freeware executable 32 bits for Win95 (runs also on NT4.0)

Written by: Bart Kerver

Purpose:

- filter mail for unwanted header X-Mailer / Message-ID

- add an extra X-Header

- provide some info over the amount of mails sent

- create simple and free "mailgate" for small LAN's

Thanks for testing:

Erik, Sander, Willem-Jan, Remco, Andre