>I'm quite new to Linux, and very new to setting up mail so please
>bear with me if these are stupid questions. I've got a one user
>dial-up box, retrieving mail from my provider using fetchmail. I'm
>pretty sure I'm not doing this the right way. I've got two files in
>control/
>
>me:
>mymadeupdomainname.com
>
>virtualdomains:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]:trent
>trent@localhost:trent
>:alias-outgoing_ppp
>
>This is they only setup that I can get to work. If I take out the
>trent@localhost line mail gets put in the outgoing_ppp dir (where my
>mail is queued until I connect) when I run fetchmail. I know there
>is rcpthosts, locals, ... but I don't know how to set them up. If
>someone can tell me the correct way to configure this I would be
>grateful.
I've got a similar configuration, and had some added wrinkles that,
combined, represented a new combination on this list.
But my configuration is different enough from yours to perhaps be
not much help, or too much to deal with (and, besides, it's probably
not ideal, yet).
I suggest you do what I did, carefully read qmail-control, and follow
all the links to other docs, slowly building your understanding of
what all the files in control/ do. Use the qmail-lint program recently
announced here (by Russ Nelson, IIRC), something I haven't yet tried
myself.
If you don't understand a term or phrase you read, trust me, you *have*
to go find its definition before you proceed. Don't assume that
a term, different from one you saw used a paragraph earlier (which
you did understand), must necessarily mean something you don't care
about and thus can safely ignore -- it might refer to the very same
thing. (E.g. I thought "envelope sender address" couldn't be the
same as "Return-Path:", because they were both used in the same man
page. I knew I wanted to change the latter, and overlooked the
explanation of how to change the former. They are the same thing.
I'd read that earlier, but hadn't fully memorized it at that point.)
>From what I've read about the principles and goals behind the design
of qmail, it's one of the most rock-solid-from-the-ground-up
free-software products we'll ever see. The documentation is well
outside of *that* box, however, and should be not be treated as if
it is. While I haven't resorted to reading the code yet, it is
certainly required to have a complete understanding of what the
documentation would ideally provide, especially when including things
like serialmail (the docs for which reminded me of ADVENT ;-).
(Fortunately, the docs can be improved without reducing the excellence
of the software itself, if that's what is desired.)
tq vm, (burley)
