Mixmaster Tutorial Third Draft Comments: This message did not originate from the Sender address above

This is an attempt to tell newbies how to get started using Mixmaster under Linux so that they can use the remailer system. I wanted to put this together because documentation understandable by the average user seems to be lacking.

I hope to provide enough information to get people to the point of sending simple messages through the remailers.

Please chime in with corrections, additions, etc.

Any examples of command line usage would be most welcome.

Third Draft Thanks to Anonymous for his help.

I buttume you have some version of linux installed and know how to use the package manager to add programs.

You will need to install: Mixmaster Postfix SEE (1) IN THE NOTES SECTION

To make things as 'gui' as possible, I strongly recommend you also install: Ncurses webmin for postfix

Mixmaster I think I took the defaults for this and didn't have a problem. I think it asks you if you want to install ncurses while you are at it. Say yes, since ncurses will give you a simple gui when you want to send a message.

Postfix This is a mail server which Mixmaster will automatically use for smtp purposes. Take the defaults when setting this up. The one exception is when it asks for the internet hostname of the mail system. Use a fully-qualified domain name. You can get one from places like dyndns.org or yi.org, which point to your ip.

Webmin for Postfix This provides a gui for configuring Postfix. The only thing I had to do was get into general options and change the internet hostname of the mail system to a fully-qualified name, because I had taken the non-fully-qualified default when setting up postfix.

By the way, it isn't obvious how to get into Webmin, so here is how: open your browser and type localhost:10000. It will ask you for the root id and pbuttword, and will probably re-direct you to another local url. Remember the new url and use it the next time.

One more thing about Postfix. It is apparently a simplified version of Sendmail, which is what mixmaster *really* requires; but it has been jiggered so that mixmaster thinks it is sendmail. I tried installing sendmail, but got loads of messages about things being screwed up. Stick with Postfix.

TO RUN MIXMASTER USING THE COMMAND LINE

Here are a couple of command line examples. Since you can do a lot more with the command line than the elementary gui, it's probably worth while learning this.

You should change these to fit your wishes and copy and paste them into a terminal session (Linux has sophisticated scripting, but I don't know how to use it. If you do, let us know - as long as your explanation is simple, clear, and sufficient).

The easiest way to send a message using the command line is to create the message in a file and then specify the file in the command line. This allows you to put any headers you want in the message.

Here is an example of sending a mixmaster message to usenet. It has a subject and a 'from' header (in the file containing the body of the message). If you want the 'from' header to show up, you need to use, as the last remailer, one that supports that. I think Italy and Hastio are two that do.

For easier understanding, the parameters are displayed vertically, with a comment.

mixmaster -c 1       send 1 copy of the msg -l italy    use this remailer Here it is, spread out: N.B. after you run this command, type in: mixmaster -S That will send the message from the pool. If you don't type in: mixmaster -S, the message will not be sent. Here is what the file, info.txt, might look like. Note the skipped line after the last header. That is essential.