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Nigel Metheringham edited this page Nov 25, 2012 · 1 revision

History of Linuxconf

Back in the old days, in the long long ago, back before Google existed there was a configuration utility that shipped with Redhat and several other distributions called Linuxconf. The product is still supported today and is still excelent. Linuxconf included a virtual email server that worked with Sendmail and UW-IMAP. It used some custom extensions to accomplish virtual delivery and POP.

Eventually a patch was written to UW-IMAP called Virtual IMAP but the author hasn't updated it in years. However receintly Dovecot has added Linuxconf compatibility and here is the Dovecot Configuration.

Linuxconf is still in use today because it provides an HTML interface for managing virtual users and aliases and allows users to change their own passwords. It also controls what UNIX users are allowed to manage which virtual domains. And it has a text mode interface allowing quick and easy configuration form an SSH session.

How Linuxconf Works

Linuxconf had a really simple way of doing virtual domains. They use a passwd/shadow type file structure that is just like your passwd/shadow files except they had one for each separate domain as follows:

/etc/vmail/passwd.domain1.com
/etc/vmail/shadow.domain1.com
/etc/vmail/aliases.domain1.com

/etc/vmail/passwd.domain2.com
/etc/vmail/shadow.domain2.com
/etc/vmail/aliases.domain2.com

The mail is stored in a directory structure in MBOX format. Assuning the login name passed to Dovecot is [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), for IMAP folders the directory structure is:

/vhome/domain.com/home/user

The INBOX is stored as follows:

/var/spool/vmail/domain.com/user

The Linuxconf virtual email system is actually pretty good especially if you are merging several existing single domain servers into one virtual domain servers. All you have to do is copy over your existing passwd/shadow files into the /etc/vmail folder and rename them. You will need to do some editing on the passwd file to point to where you wish to store your email.

Configuring Exim to work with Linuxconf

Exim works very well with this configuration.

Routers

# Virtual Aliases

virtual_alias:
  driver = redirect
  allow_defer
  allow_fail
  data = ${expand:${lookup{$local_part}lsearch*{/etc/vmail/aliases.$domain} } }
  domains = +virtual_local_domains
  file_transport = address_file
  pipe_transport = special_pipe
  qualify_preserve_domain
  user = mail
  require_files = /etc/vmail/aliases.$domain

# Virtual Localuser

virtual_localuser:
  driver = accept
  condition = ${lookup {$local_part} lsearch {/etc/vmail/passwd.$domain} {$value}}
  domains = +virtual_local_domains
  require_files = /etc/vmail/passwd.$domain
  transport = virtual_local_delivery

################################################### 
# This router matches virtual local user imap folders.
# Folders are addresses folder-name@domain

virtual_localuser_folder:
  driver = accept
  local_part_suffix=-*
  condition = ${lookup {$local_part} lsearch {/etc/vmail/passwd.$domain} {$value}}
  domains = +virtual_local_domains
  require_files = /etc/vmail/passwd.$domain:\
     /vhome/$domain/home/$local_part/${sg {$local_part_suffix}{-}{}}
  retry_use_local_part
  transport = virtual_local_folder_delivery
  user = root

Transports

virtual_local_delivery:
  driver = appendfile
  allow_symlink
  create_directory
  delivery_date_add
  directory_mode = 600
  envelope_to_add
#  file = /vhome/$domain/home/$local_part/INBOX
  file = /var/spool/vmail/$domain/$local_part
  group = mail
  mode = 600
  return_path_add
  user = ${extract{2} {:} {${lookup {$local_part} lsearch {/etc/vmail/passwd.$domain} {$value} } } }

# This allows for direct folder delivery. A very nice trick to add. If a message is
# addressed to [email protected] then it will be delivered into the users imap folder.

virtual_local_folder_delivery:
  driver = appendfile
  allow_symlink
  create_directory
  delivery_date_add
  directory_mode = 600
  envelope_to_add
  file = /vhome/$domain/home/$local_part/${sg {$local_part_suffix}{-}{}}
  group = mail
  mode = 600
  return_path_add
  user = ${extract{2} {:} {${lookup {$local_part} lsearch {/etc/vmail/passwd.$domain} {$value} } } }

More information about Linuxconf can be found at their `Home Site`_.

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