[TriLUG] Mail server questions

[John Berninger]

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Lisa C Boyd wrote:

> Having had better days, I've tried to "fix" my mail server and I'm 
> growing fuzzy on how a few things are handled. I appreciate any clear 
> direction that can be given :)
> 
> I have Sendmail set up to receive mail. Then procmail processes it as 
> well as CanIt scanning it for viruses/spam. I'm not sure right now which 
> order that happens in. I've also tried to setup Dovecot for imap/pop3 
> access but that's causing me even more problems so I'm thinking of 
> changing.
> 
> 1. I have files for each user in /var/spool/mail. What puts the mail 
> there? What deletes the mail from that file? What moves the files from 
> there to the user's home directory?
        The last delivery agent in the chain actually writes the
messages to the mail spool.  This is either procmail or CanIt, based on
your description, depending on which is last to touch a message.
Messages are removed when they're read and copied to another location -
this could be from a user-level ~/.procmailrc or a mail client (mutt,
Mozilla, Evo, pine, etc).

> 2. What happens if I have both maildirs and mbox?
        As long as folder 'a' is one type and folder 'b' is the other
and you don't try to mix types in the same folder, nothing special - it
should just work.  Your client will default to one type versus another
for new folders that you create, but as long as the client udnerstands
both types you should be okay.  If you mean user 'a' has one type and
user 'b' has another type, then nothing should happen at all except for
stuff just working.

-- 
John Berninger
                                                                                
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Ita erat quando hic adveni.
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