Mishawaka (mish-a-wak-a) Internet Mail Server

What is it good for? Mishawaka is a program which handles Internet mail. By supporting the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and POP3 (Post Office Protocol) it can allow you receive mail directly (if you have a full time connection), or send mail without using your ISP's server.

What computers does it run on? Mishawaka in a Win32 application, which means Win95, WinNT, Win98, WINE, etc. It does not work on a Macintosh (Sorry Dad). Because the code is available, someone could probably port it without much trouble.

Is it safe? Mishawaka does not have an installer. It does not send me data (i.e. "Online registration"). It does not have a back door. There are no usage restrictions. Yes, it is configured to host my domain as a default, but this is an example, and isn't enabled.

Why are you giving away the source code? Because I do not want to maintain it, but would like people to benefit from my work. Either by using it, or learning from it. When I wrote it I was amazed at how little example source code was available. Hopefully this will help.

Does my ISP really record all of my E-mail? Yes.

Does Mishawaka come with a warranty? Can I sue you because you don't have a fancy leagalease disclaimer? No. There is no warranty. I am not responsible for what you do with the program/code. What do you think?

Why don't other mail clients send mail directly to the destination without intermediates? First of all, mishawaka is a server, not a client. The user interface is minimal, and insufficient for a mail client. It runs all the time, so it needs to be small.

Secondly, I can't speak for other programmers but, I would bet it has something to do with an incomplete API by Microsoft. (No, not everything is Microsoft's fault. I happen to be a happy shareholder. They make the best products, although some of them are still crap.) More specifically, WinSock does not let (or at leat I could not figure out how) to do a type=MX (mail exchanger) DNS query. This is needed to interpret the host name on the right of the @ sign.

What compiler did you use? Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2. It will probably build with every C compiler. I was conservative and stuck to the Win32 specification. It is a reasonably nice compiler, the warnings weren't as complete as GCC.

What is up with the icon? I didn't bother to make one which looked nice, yet. The purple blob is just a filler.

What is up with the name "Mishawaka"? It was my home town in Indiana. The city was named after an Indian princess.