Electronic mail

You can use an existing electronic mail mechanism as the transport method for packets. On the sending end, compress and encode the packet and then send the resulting data to a specific electronic mail alias at the receiving site. On the receiving end, redirect the electronic mail alias to a script that decodes and decompresses the incoming information.

To ensure that a electronic mail message is not too large to be delivered, you can specify the maximum size for a packet by using the -maxsize option, the shipping.conf file (Linux and the UNIX system), or the MultiSite Control Panel (Windows).

Advantages:
  • Transport mechanism is well understood and widely available.
  • Little effort is required from the system administrator.
Disadvantages:
  • No control over routing of data.
  • Possibility that messages can be intercepted or lost without notification.
  • Less efficient than ftp or store-and-forward.
Note:
  1. You can write scripts to automate electronic mail transport. The sending script creates the packets, compresses and encodes them, and divides them into multiple small packets so they are not too big for the electronic mail process. The script must mark the multiple packets with the correct sequencing. The script then sends the packets to an address at the target location or replica.

    At the target location, the account that receives the packets redirects or pipes them to a process that reassembles, decodes, and uncompresses them and places them in the replica's storage bay.

    MultiSite import commands handle out-of-sequence and missing packet problems, so your scripts do not have to address these issues.

  2. Using ssh and scp (secure shell and secure copy) provides a secure way to move files through firewalls.
  3. For security, you must encrypt the packets.