~mdw / qmail / blame
| Commit | Line | Data |
|---|---|---|
| 2117e02e MW |
1 | qmail lets each user control all addresses of the form user-anything. |
| 2 | Addresses that don't start with a username are controlled by a special | |
| 3 | user, alias. Delivery instructions for foo go into ~alias/.qmail-foo; | |
| 4 | delivery instructions for user-foo go into ~user/.qmail-foo. See | |
| 212b6f5d | 5 | dot-qmail.0 for the full story. |
| 2117e02e MW |
6 | |
| 7 | qmail doesn't have any built-in support for /etc/aliases. If you have a | |
| 212b6f5d MW |
8 | big /etc/aliases and you'd like to keep it, install the fastforward |
| 9 | package, available separately. /etc/aliases should already include the | |
| 10 | aliases discussed below---Postmaster, MAILER-DAEMON, and root. | |
| 2117e02e MW |
11 | |
| 12 | If you don't have a big /etc/aliases, you'll find it easier to use | |
| 13 | qmail's native alias mechanism. Here's a checklist of aliases you should | |
| 14 | set up right now. | |
| 15 | ||
| 16 | * Postmaster. You're not an Internet citizen if this address doesn't | |
| 17 | work. Simply touch (and chmod 644) ~alias/.qmail-postmaster; any mail | |
| 18 | for Postmaster will be delivered to ~alias/Mailbox. | |
| 19 | ||
| 20 | * MAILER-DAEMON. Not required, but users sometimes respond to bounce | |
| 21 | messages. Touch (and chmod 644) ~alias/.qmail-mailer-daemon. | |
| 22 | ||
| 23 | * root. Under qmail, root never receives mail. Your system may generate | |
| 24 | mail messages to root every night; if you don't have an alias for root, | |
| 25 | those messages will bounce. (They'll end up double-bouncing to the | |
| 26 | postmaster.) Set up an alias for root in ~alias/.qmail-root. .qmail | |
| 27 | files are similar to .forward files, but beware that they are strictly | |
| 28 | line-oriented---see dot-qmail.0 for details. | |
| 29 | ||
| 30 | * Other non-user accounts. Under qmail, non-user accounts don't get | |
| 31 | mail; ``user'' means a non-root account that owns ~account. Set up | |
| 32 | aliases for any non-user accounts that normally receive mail. | |
| 33 | ||
| 34 | Note that special accounts such as ftp, www, and uucp should always have | |
| 35 | home directories owned by root. | |
| 36 | ||
| 37 | * Default. If you want, you can touch ~alias/.qmail-default to catch | |
| 38 | everything else. Beware: this will also catch typos and other addresses | |
| 39 | that should probably be bounced instead. It won't catch addresses that | |
| 40 | start with a user name---the user can set up his own ~/.qmail-default. |