Mac Gty: Using Auto-Propagation Versus Gateway Installer (103289)

SUMMARY

When you install access gateways on version 3.0 or later of Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk Networks, there are some differences between using the Gateway Installer and using Microsoft Mail's built-in auto-propagation feature. Some of these important differences are described below.

Access Gateways Installed via Auto-propagation

For a master gateway to support auto-propagation, the gateway developer must set the FLGS resource in the gateway install file. This tells the Mail server that the gateway understands how to use the Special icon for addressing information and enables the "All in-site servers can access" check box at gateway installation time.
You can tell if an access gateway is installed by clicking the Special icon in the Address Mail window and looking for the name of the gateway. Auto-propagated access gateways are NOT displayed in the Gateway Installer.
Custom addressing forms and custom message forms cannot propagate to access servers from the master gateway. The only information that will propagate from the gateway server to the access server is the gateway name, the two-character ID, and the serial number of the gateway server. Additionally, any gateway recipients will propagate to the access server.
When the master gateway is removed, a MasterGone message is sent to all servers in the same site. This will cause each server to remove all of its resources related to the gateway.

Access Gateways Installed via Gateway Installer

NOTE: Auto-propagation does not work across sites so you must extract and install access gateways with the Gateway Installer on servers in different sites than the master gateway.

For gateways that require custom address forms (for example, some X.400 gateways), you must extract and install access gateways with the Gateway Installer.
These access gateways do show up in the Gateway Installer.
When an access gateway is installed on a Mail server, an ENSLAVE request is sent to the master gateway telling it to send gateway recipients.

When an access gateway is removed, a DESLAVE request is sent to the master gateway telling the master gateway to stop sending gateway recipients.

MORE INFORMATION

Once the relationship between the master gateway and the access gateway is established, the master gateway does not remember how an access gateway became an access gateway. It does not remember whether the access gateways were installed via auto-propagation or by using the Gateway Installer. This can cause an problem in the following scenario:

Install a master gateway that supports auto-propagation, but also has a custom form.
Use the Gateway Installer to extract and install an access gateway on a Mail server in a different site.
Rebuild the data file of the access gateway in the different site.
After the rebuilt Mail server and the master gateway have seen each other, the master gateway will auto-propagate access gateway information, without the custom form, to the server in the different site. However, the access gateway will not function at full capacity because the custom form is missing.

NOTE: The problem in step 4 occurs because the master gateway auto-propagates access gateway information to the server in the DIFFERENT site.

If you try to repeat step 2 above, the Gateway Installer will fail with an error stating that there is already a gateway with that ID installed. Version 3.1 of the Gateway Installer will allow you to repeat step 2, thus allowing you to install an access gateway that contains the custom form.