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

   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.