debian/rules: Use `git' potty wrapper.
[qmail] / INSTALL.ctl
CommitLineData
2117e02e
MW
1As you've seen, qmail has essentially no pre-compilation configuration.
2You should never have to recompile it unless you want to change the
3qmail home directory, usernames, or uids.
4
5qmail does allow quite a bit of easy post-installation configuration. If
6you care how your machine greets other machines via SMTP, for example,
7you can put an appropriate line into /var/qmail/control/smtpgreeting.
8
9But this is all optional---if control/smtpgreeting doesn't exist, qmail
10will do something reasonable by default. You shouldn't worry much about
11configuration right now. You can always come back and tune things later.
12
212b6f5d
MW
13There's one big exception. You MUST tell qmail your hostname. Just run
14the config-fast script:
2117e02e 15
212b6f5d 16 # ./config-fast your.full.host.name
2117e02e 17
212b6f5d
MW
18config-fast puts your.full.host.name into control/me. It also puts it
19into control/locals and control/rcpthosts, so that qmail will accept
20mail for your.full.host.name.
21
22You can instead use the config script, which looks up your host name in
23DNS:
24
25 # ./config
26
27config also looks up your local IP addresses in DNS to decide which
28hosts to accept mail for.
2117e02e
MW
29
30(Why doesn't qmail do these lookups on the fly? This was a deliberate
31design decision. qmail does all its local functions---header rewriting,
32checking if a recipient is local, etc.---without talking to the network.
33The point is that qmail can continue accepting and delivering local mail
34even if your network connection goes down.)
35
36Next, read through FAQ for information on setting up optional features
37like masquerading. If you really want to learn right now what all the
38configuration possibilities are, see qmail-control.0.