Re: mail spool (Finale)

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "jrfern" == jrfern  <jrfern@bigfoot.com> writes:

    jrfern> Well, the aliases system in qmail is completely
    jrfern> different. Should this ammount to a wishlist message to
    jrfern> the qmail-src maintainer, suggesting a qmail ->
    jrfern> fastforward dependancy? (this applies to sendmail to qmail
    jrfern> migration, but not the other way round). Should an
    jrfern> 'addalias' script be created which wrote both to
    jrfern> /var/lib/qmail/alias/ and /etc/aliases?

I think qmail is the only MTA that doesn't support /etc/aliases (AFAIK),
and even this can be supported (last I heard) with add ons, so
I shouldn't be discussed further.

    jrfern> CONCLUSIVE QUESTIONS Is qmail an inherently non-Policy
    jrfern> packet? Should the Policy wording be modified? Doesn't the
    jrfern> Policy have a bias for a sendmail-like system? Have the
    jrfern> security implications been considered (see Bugtraq 1999-1,
    jrfern> discussion between Venema and Berstein)? Did I miss
    jrfern> something?

    jrfern> How about an /etc/mailsystem conffile?  For instance (of
    jrfern> course this is naïve) mta=qmail|sendmail|smail...  mda=...
    jrfern> spool= aliases= mboxformat=mbox|mh folders|maildir...

I think it is important to realize that other programs support
~/Mailbox and ~/Maildir now, and not only qmail.

Please stop making the assumption that you must be using qmail if you
do use on of these mailbox spools. I, for instance, use postfix with
~/Maildir. mutt, gnus, pine, procmail, postfix all support it fine
(although it is a while since I last used pine). I probably missed
some programs in this list.

All of these programs are DFSG free.

Hence all you really need for an /etc/mailsystem config file would be:

mboxformat=mbox|maildir
location=~/Maildir|~/Mailbox|/var/spool/mail/$USER

I don't think the other options are required or needed. However, some
way to override these defaults on a per user baisis is important
(eg in case a user needs a non-default location for some reason).
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>