mdw@git.distorted.org.uk Git - qmail/blob - qmail-getpw.9

   1 .TH qmail-getpw 8
   2 .SH NAME
   3 qmail-getpw \- give addresses to users
   4 .SH SYNOPSIS
   5 .B qmail-getpw
   6 .I local
   7 .SH DESCRIPTION
   8 In
   9 .BR qmail ,
  10 each user controls a vast array of local addresses.
  11 .B qmail-getpw
  12 finds the user that controls a particular address,
  13 .IR local .
  14 It prints six pieces of information,
  15 each terminated by NUL:
  16 .IR user ;
  17 .IR uid ;
  18 .IR gid ;
  19 .IR homedir ;
  20 .IR dash ;
  21 and
  22 .IR ext .
  23 The user's account name is
  24 .IR user ;
  25 the user's uid and gid in decimal are
  26 .I uid
  27 and
  28 .IR gid ;
  29 the user's home directory is
  30 .IR homedir ;
  31 and messages to
  32 .I local
  33 will be handled by
  34 .IR homedir\fB/.qmail\fIdashext .
  35
  36 In case of trouble,
  37 .B qmail-getpw
  38 exits nonzero without printing anything.
  39
  40 .B WARNING:
  41 The operating system's
  42 .B getpwnam
  43 function, which is at the heart of
  44 .BR qmail-getpw ,
  45 is inherently unreliable.
  46 .SH "RULES"
  47 .B qmail-getpw
  48 considers an account in
  49 .B /etc/passwd
  50 to be a user if
  51 (1) the account has a nonzero uid,
  52 (2) the account's home directory exists (and is visible to
  53 .BR qmail-getpw ),
  54 and
  55 (3) the account owns its home directory.
  56 .B qmail-getpw
  57 ignores account names containing uppercase letters.
  58 .B qmail-getpw
  59 also assumes that all account names are shorter than 32 characters.
  60
  61 .B qmail-getpw
  62 gives each user
  63 control over the basic
  64 .I user
  65 address and
  66 all addresses of the form
  67 .IR user\fBBREAK\fIanything .
  68 When
  69 .I local
  70 is
  71 .IR user ,
  72 .I dash
  73 and
  74 .I ext
  75 are both empty.
  76 When
  77 .I local
  78 is
  79 .IR user\fBBREAK\fIanything ,
  80 .I dash
  81 is a hyphen and
  82 .I ext
  83 is
  84 .IR anything .
  85 .I user
  86 may appear in any combination of uppercase and lowercase letters
  87 at the front of
  88 .IR local .
  89
  90 A catch-all user,
  91 .BR alias ,
  92 controls all other addresses.
  93 In this case
  94 .I ext
  95 is
  96 .I local
  97 and
  98 .I dash
  99 is a hyphen.
 100
 101 You can override all of
 102 .BR qmail-getpw 's
 103 decisions with the
 104 .B qmail-users
 105 mechanism, which is reliable, highly configurable, and much faster than
 106 .BR qmail-getpw .
 107 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 108 qmail-users(5),
 109 qmail-lspawn(8)