4.11 fastforward and etcaliases

4.11 fastforward and /etc/aliases

Sendmail and other MTAs use configuration files such as /etc/aliases that contain lists of mailboxes and forwarding instructions. While qmail doesn't have a built-in feature to do that, the add-on fastforward package (available at http://cr.yp.to/fastforward.html provides both a mostly compatible way to handle existing /etc/alias files) and a more general scheme to handle files with forwarding instructions and mailing lists.

4.11.1 Installing fastforward

You can download and install the fastforward package the same way you install Dan's other programs, as described in Chapter 3. This section describes fastforward Version 0.51.

4.11.2 Using fastforward

The central program in the fastforward package is fastforward itself. It's designed to be run from a .qmail file. When run, it gets the recipient address from $RECIPIENT or optionally $DEFAULT@$HOST, looks up the address in a delivery database, and if it finds the address, follows the delivery instructions for the address.

fastforward takes its instructions from a CDB-format file. There are two ways to create the file: using newaliases to create /etc/aliases.cdb from /etc/aliases, which is in sendmail format, or using setforward to create a CDB from an arbitrary file, which is in a different, more flexible format. All of fastforward's CDB files have the same format, regardless of which program created them.

The CDB file can refer to mailing list files of addresses; the difference is that the CDB file contains addresses and delivery instructions, while a mailing list file just contains a list of addresses and other mailing list files, for use within a delivery instruction. Mailing list files can be created by newinclude, which reads input containing a list of addresses in a format similar to the one sendmail uses for :include: files, or by setmaillist, which reads input in a more flexible format. Mailing list files created by either program have the same format, so you can use the input format that is more convenient. Compiled mailing list files have the extension .bin. In this section, I describe /etc/alias compatibility and leave the rest for the sections on virtual domains (Chapter 12) and mailing lists (Chapter 14).

The most common way to use fastforward is to call it from ~alias/.qmail-default so it can take a crack at any addresses not handled otherwise:

| fastforward /etc/aliases.cdb

Or you can also combine it with other default rules. For example, to use fastforward and then redeliver mail to subaddresses to the base address of the subaddress:

| fastforward -p /etc/aliases.cdb | case "$DEFAULT" in *-*) forward "${DEFAULT%%-*}" ;; *) bouncesaying "Sorry, no  mailbox here by that name. (#5.1.1)" ;; esac

The -p flag says to "pass through," that is, exit 99 if an address is found or exit 0 if not, so qmail goes on to the next line in the .qmail file if fastforward didn't deliver it. (In the absence of -p, fastforward exits 0 if it forwards the message and 100 otherwise to bounce the mail.)

4.11.3 Alias File Format

The format of /etc/alias is a sequence of forwarding instructions. The most common instruction forwards an address to one or more other addresses:

bob: robert ted: edward, edwin, eduardo [e-mail]: frederick [e-mail]: nobody @good.example.com: mary

Mail to ted is forwarded to edward, edwin, and eduardo. This form is useful for role accounts that are handled by several people or tiny mailing lists that change rarely. If there are multiple names in localhosts for this host, distinguish addresses by putting the domain of the address, and forward all addresses in a domain by using @domain. (This feature is more often used to handle addresses in virtual domains; see Chapter 12.) As a concession to sendmail compatibility, addresses can have comments and can be quoted as they are in To: and From: lines. Any line that starts with # is a comment, and any line can be continued by starting continuation lines with whitespace:

bell: |ringthebell klaxon: "|ringthebell --reallyloud"

Any address that starts with a vertical bar is treated as a command for program delivery. If the command contains whitespace or at-signs, it has to be quoted. fastforward runs the program as whatever user it's running as, which is alias if it's called from ~alias/.qmail-default. (To run a program as another user, it has to be called from a .qmail file belonging to that user. See Chapter 15.) The program is run as:

preline sh -c command

so that the message starts with a sendmail-style From line.

cephalopods: :include:/usr/fred/cephalopods owner-cephalopods: fred

Any address that starts with :include: refers to the contents of a mailing list file. The mailing list file must have been compiled by newinclude or setmaillist, so in the previous example, fastforward looks for /usr/fred/cephalopods.bin, and the delivery is deferred if the file isn't available. If there is an entry for both listname and owner-listname, any forwarded mail to listname has its envelope sender changed to owner-listname so bounces will go back to the owner of the list.

Note that mailing list files are read by fastforward when they're needed, not by newaliases. This means that, in the previous example, the addresses on the list belong to user fred, who can update the list file and rerun newinclude as needed. Mailing list files can refer to other mailing list files, but for security reasons (and unlike sendmail), they cannot contain program deliveries. This is not much of a problem in practice. In the previous example, if Fred wanted to, say, fax list messages to someone using a fax program, he could add an address fred-squidfax to the mailing list, then create ~fred/.qmail-squidfax with whatever program deliveries he wants, running as fred, not as alias.

fastforward lives up to its name when doing list deliveries, and it can dispatch messages to huge lists very quickly. Nonetheless, if you have a large list with hundreds or thousands of recipients, it's better to use a mailing list manager like ezmlm (Chapter 14) to provide automated bounce handling, and a partly or fully automated subscribe and unsubscribe service for list members.