hello all (and particularly Ken),
I've been playing with my vpopmail 4.9.4/qmail/mysql system to find quirks
we may run into... I saw this feature addition and was thrilled at the
prospect of being able to simply add users to my database and vpopmail would
take care of the rest... even found crypt libraries for windows that so they
could be added from a vb app if need be (don't ask... it wasn't my idea, err
- requirement). Anywho, here are some general weird results I've experienced
...
One general note for people using a database (and I suppose anyother method)
is that if you have no value in the UID or GID field, trying to pop or
deliver to that account will cause the 'Aack,_child_crashed._(#4.3.0)/'
error... You can also get this if there are path inconsistencies such as
those created by the scenario below...
With this directory creation feature in particular ... regardless of the
domain the user being created is in (virtual or default), the first time
'username' is encountered, it is creating 2 directories for that user:
(1) /home/vpopmail/domains/username
(2) /home/vpopmail/domains/mydomain.net/username
the database home directory, though, is updated with (1), not (2)... a
second username (in another domain) is created correctly in location (2) and
the db home dir is updated accordingly (adjusting for domain, of course)...
Mail delivery and receipt works fine for all the users, but creates some
unnecessary administrative problems :) I have a feeling the trickle this
causes will be eliminated if that's fixed.
so I guess what I'm getting at is there's a little bug in the fancy
directory algorithm. Thanx for taking a look at this Ken!
jesse
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Jones [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2000 11:48 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: New 4.9.3 and above feature
Here is a new feature that has been added to the
vdelivermail and vchkpw programs.
If a user exists in the authentication module, but thier
directory entry is blank (null or 0 length string), then
both vdelivermail and vchkpw will automatically create
a directory using the bigdir directory layout algorythm
that is used in the vadduser program. Then it will update
the authentication information.
How is this useful?
Using LDAP or an SQL database, you can add users to any
domain by adding an entry for them in the database.
This raises two problems
1) who creates the directory for the users mail?
2) who figures out the best place to put the directory?
With this new feature in place, just add the user with
a blank directory value. The first time email is delivered
to the user, or they check thier email via pop, it will
use the fancy directory layout algorytm to pick the
best place to put thier directory, and then create the
directory.
That is what is in place now. Next thing we are going
to do is move this functionality to the vauth_getpw
function. For several reasons
1) don't have to have the same code in vchkpw and vdelivermail
2) sqwebmail, courier-imap or anyone else who uses vauth_getpw
will have the same functionality.
Ken Jones
