Subject: Qmail, smail and sendmail

From: Yves Arrouye <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 02:00:15 +0200

I'd like to know if there's a qmail Debian package, and how aliases
work in qmail: the Apache package used to add an alias to /etc/aliases
and then run sendmail -bi (or newaliases).

Does qmail support /etc/aliases, have a newaliases command and support
being called as sendmail with the -bi option?

The same questions may be asked for smail.

Is the answer is no, can you please email me some doc? And maybe we'll
have to write an install-mail-alias command used by packages script, in
this case.

Yves.

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From: Mark Eichin <[email-masked]>
Date: 09 Aug 1996 12:39:22 -0400

> I'd like to know if there's a qmail Debian package, and how aliases

Not yet (it wasn't possible during the beta, but now that it's
Officially Released I've promised to produce one...)

> Does qmail support /etc/aliases, have a newaliases command and support

The "qmail way" is of course better :-) but I think Russ Nelson did an
/etc/aliases compatibility package (which I'll be sure to include.)

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From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 96 00:30 BST

> have to write an install-mail-alias command used by packages script, in

Well, perhaps we should just say that you can edit /etc/aliases and
must run newaliases afterwards if it exists.

Ian.

---

From: Yves Arrouye <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 11:14:44 +0200

> must run newaliases afterwards if it exists.

That's what I do. I even run sendmail -bi if newaliases is not found.
But I wanted to be sure that all mail packages do provide the same
user way of defining aliases, even if they manage them differently after
that.

Yves.

---

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 96 17:26 BST

Yves Arrouye writes ("Re: Qmail, smail and sendmail"):
...
> user way of defining aliases, even if they manage them differently after

I'll specify in the mail processing section of the polcy manual:
 <tt>/etc/aliases</> is the source file for the system mail aliases
 (e.g.  postmaster, usenet, etc.) - it is the one which the sysadmin
 and postinst scripts may edit.  After <tt>/etc/aliases</> is edited
 the program or human editing it must call <prgn/newaliases/.  All MTA
 packages should come with a <prgn/newaliases/ program, even if it does
 nothing, but older MTA packages do not do this so programs should not
 fail if <prgn/newaliases/ cannot be found.
 <p>

Ian.