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INSTALL.mbox.md

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The qmail package includes a local delivery agent, qmail-local, which provides user-controlled mailing lists, cross-host alias loop detection, and many other important qmail features.

There's one important difference between qmail-local and binmail: qmail-local delivers mail by default into ~user/Mailbox, rather than /var/spool/mail/user. It uses mbox format, with lockf locking on systems that don't have flock (HP/UX, Solaris), and flock locking otherwise.

This file explains how to switch your system to ~user/Mailbox. You aren't required to do this; for further discussion of /var/spool/mail, and an explanation of how to continue using binmail for local deliveries, see INSTALL.vsm.md.

The basic procedure for switching to ~user/Mailbox is simple:

  • Move each /var/spool/mail/user to ~user/Mailbox. For safety, do this in single-user mode.

  • As root, set up a symbolic link from /var/spool/mail/user to ~user/Mailbox for each user. /var/spool/mail should be mode 1777, so users will not be able to accidentally remove these links.

A few mail programs are unable to handle symbolic links, so you will have to configure them to look at ~user/Mailbox directly:

  • procmail: Change SYSTEM_MBOX in config.h and recompile; or, with recent versions, define MAILSPOOLHOME in src/authenticate.c.

An alternative to symbolic links is hlfsd. Consult the documentation for hlfsd if it is included in your operating system.

If /var/spool/mail is large, you can gain extra speed by configuring all your mail software to look at ~user/Mailbox directly:

  • Most MUAs: Put "setenv MAIL $HOME/Mailbox" in your system-wide .cshrc and "MAIL=$HOME/Mailbox; export MAIL" in your system-wide .profile.

  • elm: Change "mailbox" to "Mailbox" around line 388 of newmbox.c and recompile. (elm looks at $MAIL, but without this change elm will fail if two users try to read mail simultaneously.)

  • pine: Put "inbox-path=Mailbox" in your system-wide pine.conf. (For pine versions more recent than 3.91, see also FAQ 6.2.)

  • qpopper 2.2: Change /.mail to /Mailbox in pop_dropcopy.c and recompile with -DHOMEDIRMAIL in CFLAGS.

Some vendors, in a misguided attempt to solve the security problems of /var/spool/mail, have made all their mail software setgid mail. After you move the mailboxes, you can -- and, for security, should -- remove those setgid-mail bits.