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212b6f5d MW |
1 | This document explains what you, as a user, will notice when the system |
2 | switches from sendmail to qmail. | |
3 | ||
4 | This is a global document, part of the qmail package, not reflecting the | |
5 | decisions made by your system administrator. For details on | |
6 | ||
7 | * which local delivery agent qmail is configured to use, | |
8 | * whether qmail is configured to use dot-forward, | |
9 | * whether ezmlm is installed, | |
10 | * whether fastforward is installed, and | |
11 | * all other local configuration features, | |
12 | ||
13 | see your local sendmail-qmail upgrade announcement (which your system | |
14 | administrator may have placed into /var/qmail/doc/ANNOUNCE). | |
15 | ||
16 | ||
17 | --- Mailbox location | |
18 | ||
19 | If your system administrator has configured qmail to use binmail for | |
20 | local deliveries, your mailbox will be in /var/spool/mail/you, just as | |
21 | it was under sendmail. | |
22 | ||
23 | If your system administrator has configured qmail to use qmail-local for | |
24 | local deliveries, your mailbox will be moved to ~you/Mailbox. There is a | |
25 | symbolic link from /var/spool/mail/you to ~you/Mailbox, so your mail | |
26 | reader will find the mailbox at its new location. | |
27 | ||
28 | ||
29 | --- Loop control | |
30 | ||
31 | qmail-local automatically adds a Delivered-To field at the top of every | |
32 | delivered message. It uses Delivered-To to prevent mail forwarding | |
33 | loops, including cross-host mailing-list loops. | |
34 | ||
35 | ||
36 | --- Outgoing messages | |
37 | ||
38 | qmail lets you use environment variables to control the appearance of | |
39 | your outgoing mail, supplementing the features offered by your MUA. For | |
40 | example, qmail-inject will set up Mail-Followup-To for you automatically | |
41 | if you tell it which mailing lists you are subscribed to. See | |
42 | qmail-inject(8) for a complete list of features. | |
43 | ||
44 | If you're at (say) sun.ee.movie.edu, qmail lets you type joe@mac for | |
45 | joe@mac.ee.movie.edu, and joe@mac+ for joe@mac.movie.edu without the ee. | |
46 | sendmail has a different interpretation of hostnames without dots. | |
47 | ||
48 | ||
49 | --- Forwarding and mailing lists | |
50 | ||
51 | qmail gives you the power to set up your own mailing lists without | |
52 | pestering your system administrator. | |
53 | ||
54 | Under qmail, you are in charge of all addresses of the form | |
55 | you-anything. The delivery of you-anything is controlled by | |
56 | ~you/.qmail-anything, a file in your home directory. | |
57 | ||
58 | For example, if you want to set up a bug-of-the-month-club mailing list, | |
59 | you can put a list of addresses into ~you/.qmail-botmc. Any mail to | |
60 | you-botmc will be forwarded to all of those addresses. Mail directly to | |
61 | you is controlled by ~you/.qmail. You can even set up a catch-all, | |
62 | ~you/.qmail-default, to handle unknown you- addresses. | |
63 | ||
64 | See dot-qmail(5) for the complete story. Beware that the syntax of | |
65 | .qmail is different from the syntax of sendmail's .forward file. | |
66 | ||
67 | If your system administrator has configured qmail to use the dot-forward | |
68 | compatibility tool, you can put forwarding addresses (and programs) into | |
69 | .forward the same way you did with sendmail. | |
70 | ||
71 | If your system administrator has installed ezmlm, you can use ezmlm-make | |
72 | to instantly set up a professional-quality mailing list, handling | |
73 | subscriptions and archives automatically. | |
74 | ||
75 | If your system administrator has installed fastforward, you can easily | |
76 | manage a large database of forwarding addresses. |