Lloyd Zusman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I have been happily using TMDA for several years, but only for incoming
> mail. I have wanted to use its outgoing mail features for a long time,
> but I keep getting discouraged every time I try, because the
> tmda-sendmail and tmda-ofmipd programs do not determine the user's TMDA
> config directory in the same way that this is done for incoming
> messages, and the mechanisms they use do not always fit well with my own
> email set-up. Furthermore, tmda-sendmail and tmda-ofmipd don't even
> behave consistently with each other, in this regard.
>
> The purpose of this message is to discuss this issue and to perhaps
> encourage a dialog about how we can fix these inconsistencies in order
> to make TMDA more useful.
For clarification, I just want to add that I am not using
vmailmgr/vpopmail on my site. I now realize that this is not very clear
from the way I originally wrote this message.
> First of all, I want to explain my own email setup.
>
> I host a number of domains, and I use postfix as my MTA. Email for all
> users is kept under a central directory tree, as follows:
>
> /var/vmail/DOMAIN/USER
>
> For example, for [EMAIL PROTECTED], the directory tree in which all
> incoming email is stored would be this:
>
> /var/vmail/domain.tld/someone
>
> All of these directories are owned by the "vmail" user and the "vmail"
> group. In other words, they all are associated with the same unix user
> ID. The HOME directory for the "vmail" user is "/var/vmail". This is
> one of the issues that causes me to have problems tmda-sendmail and
> tmda-ofmipd. I'll explain further, below.
>
> But first, I want to finish the description of my email set-up. I only
> store email in the /var/vmail/DOMAIN/USER tree. Any ancillary
> user-specific files and directories (such as the .tmda directory)
> are kept in a parallel tree named as follows:
>
> /var/vmusers/DOMAIN/USER
>
> For example, if [EMAIL PROTECTED] has TMDA set up, the path to the
> .tmda directory would be this:
>
> /var/vmusers/domain.tld/someone/.tmda
>
> I am able to manage this by means of a few small changes in the
> /etc/tmdarc file.
>
> The reason I separate these trees is twofold: (1) I don't want meta-data
> to be viewable or trashable via software that accesses the email itself;
> (2) it makes maintenance and email administration much cleaner for me if
> the data and meta-data are separated.
>
> This structure is maintained within a MySQL database.
>
> My set-up has been working well for me for years.
>
> So now, we come to the issues I have with the TMDA software. First,
> let's look at tmda-ofmipd.
>
> While incoming tmda software uses /etc/tmdarc to determine where to look
> for a user's .tmda directory, tmda-ofmipd seems to not use the data in
> this file in the same way, if at all. Rather, it seems to use different
> mechanisms. There are four of these, although the only one which works
> on my site is the one managed by the --vhome-script parameter. Here's a
> description of all four mechanisms, and the my reason for why
> --vhome-script is the only useful parameter:
>
> 1. Default to the ~user/.tmda directory. This doesn't work under my
> environment, because tmda-ofmipd uses this python call to determine
> this location:
>
> os.path.join(os.path.expanduser('~'), '.tmda')
>
> This always gives /var/vmail/.tmda on my system, because as you'll
> recall, all email users have the same "vmail" user ID.
>
> 2. The --vdomains-path option. I can't use this on my system, because
> I don't use qmail nor vmailmgr.
>
> 3. The --configdir option to determine the location of the .tmda
> directory. However, this doesn't work on my system, either,
> because for any given email user "someone", the .tmda config
> directory is located as follows:
>
> CONFIGDIR/someone
>
> where CONFIGDIR is the argument to the --configdir parameter. For
> example, if we have this
>
> --configdir /var/vmusers/tmda
>
> then tmda-ofmipd will use the following directory to find the TMDA
> config file:
>
> /var/vmusers/tmda/someone
>
> This is clearly different from the standard TMDA directory that
> is used for incoming mail on my system, namely this:
>
> /var/vmusers/domain.tld/someone/.tmda
>
> 4. The --vhome-script parameter. This works on my system, because I
> can cause it to generate the proper directory path to my TMDA
> config directory. The tmda-ofmipd utility makes use of the
> Util.getvuserhomedir in order to resolve this directory name.
>
> So far so good. However, in the case of tmda-sendmail, I can't use
> --vhome-script, because that option is not even offered in
> tmda-sendmail. Furthermore, instead of using Util.getvuserhomedir, that
> utility uses Util.gethomedir in order to locate the .tmda directory.
> That routine uses pwd.getpwdnam to get the path to HOME. This means
> that on my system, there is no way that tmda-sendmail can be made to
> point to the same TMDA config directory that tmda-ofmipd uses.
>
> In other words, there are at least three separate mechanisms for
> calculating a user's TMDA configure directory that are currently in use
> in TMDA:
>
> 1. For incoming messages, code and variables in /etc/tmdarc are used.
>
> 2. In tmda-ofmipd, /etc/tmdarc seems to be ignored, or if it's loaded,
> this is done at the wrong time in the program startup sequence. This
> forces me to use one of the four mechanisms listed above, of which
> --vhome-script is the only one which works on my system.
>
> 3. In tmda-sendmail, /etc/tmdarc seems to be ignored or loaded at the
> wrong time, and to make things even worse, I can't use
> --vhome-script.
>
> I'm sad to say that this is a mess.
>
> In order to fix this, I recommend the following changes:
>
> A. All TMDA utilities should load /etc/tmdarc at the appropriate time in
> order to determine the location of the TMDA config directory.
>
> B. All TMDA utilities, especially tmda-sendmail, should make use of
> --vhome-script and --configdir in exactly the same ways that
> tmda-ofmipd uses them. In fact, all these utilities should use the
> _exact_ _same_ logic for locating the TMDA config directory for a
> given user. This sould be equally true for utilities used for
> incoming mail (such as tmda-pending, tmda-filter, etc.) and
> outgoing mail (such as tmda-ofmipd, tmda-sendmail, etc.).
>
> C. In all TMDA utilities, only make calls to os.path.expanduser('~'),
> pwd.getpwdnam and other similar functions as a last resort, if all
> other higher-level mechanisms fail. And again, always use the
> _exact_ _same_ logic for deciding when to call these functions
> and how to use their results, no matter what TMDA utility is in
> use.
>
> In other words, I am advocating maximal consistency among all the
> TMDA utilities with regard to something as basic and important as
> locating the TMDA config directory.
>
> I'm eager to hear your opinions and ideas concerning these issues.
>
>
> --
> Lloyd Zusman
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> God bless you.
>
--
Lloyd Zusman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
God bless you.
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