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Date:      Fri, 01 Sep 2000 10:08:42 -0700
From:      Andrew Houghton <aah@acm.org>
To:        freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   How can I create an elegant mail system for virtual domains?
Message-ID:  <00a101c01437$47f77390$6b46ca3f@desire>

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Sorry to spam the list, but I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick
wall here.. if anyone has any thoughts on the following, and can spare a few
cycles, we can do this through email.  Just so you know, I'm running postfix
as my MTA on a fairly recent 4.1-STABLE box.

I want to set up a single box with multiple virtual domains, where each
domain can be administered by the domain owner.  Say john owns john.com, and
sue owns sue.com.  Their websites and email are being handled by my box.
The directory structure looks like this:

/virtualhosts/john.com
/virtualhosts/sue.com
/virtualhosts/....

with each virtual host having a directory structure of:

.../www
.../mail
.../ftp
.../...

John should be able to setup a certain number of mail id's, and access those
id's via a POP or IMAP server in an intuitive way.  That means that if John
has created ids for 'webmaster', 'info', and 'support', he should be able to
1) have any or all of those be forwarding addresses to some other mail
account he has somewhere else, 2) have any of those be forwarding addresses
to a different mail account on the local box, 3) have any or all of those
store mail on the local box, and 4) access those by pointing his mail client
at [pop|imap].john.com, and using a uid of 'webmaster', 'info', or 'support'
to get the mail for those accounts.  Ideally, John should also be able to
setup and control a certain number of mailing lists on his own.

I'd like to store *all* user information in either an LDAP server or a local
database .  That means the IMAP server, the POP server, the FTP server, and
the MTA (in this case postfix) should be using the LDAP server or the
database for all lookups - directory information, uid, password, etc. etc.
etc.  Using PAM for some info is fine (I got the pam_ldap module working on
my FreeBSD box, which makes me happy).

I'd also like to use Maildir for mail rather than mailbox, so that users'
mail gets counted towards their quota.

----

Given all that, I feel I'm really close to having things work, but I'm
massively confused about two things:
1) the best way to handle the changing state of a virtual host's mail
system -- how do I deliver mail to a place within the virtual hosts mail
directory, in a way that will make sense to whatever POP/IMAP server I end
up using?
2) which of the myriad POP / IMAP servers will allow me to accomplish point
4, above -- webmaster@john.com is different from webmaster@sue.com, and
nobody should *ever* have to use a compound uid (that is, no pointing your
client at pop.john.com and using a uid of 'webmaster@john.com'.)

This must have been done, somewhere.  All the various pieces for this are
out there, but they don't seem to work with each other -- cyrus does a lot
of what I want, and handles quotas itself, but I can't figure out how to
make cyrus listen to particular interfaces and use the domain name
intelligently.  solidpop3d does a lot of what I want, but requires external
files to do the username mapping (as far as I can tell it won't use the LDAP
server).  courier IMAP does a lot of what I want but doesn't provide the POP
server.

----

If someone has done this, please give me a yell and let me know.  If anyone
has looked into this and decided that everything I detailed above can be
done *except* some particular part, please let me know.  I'm looking for a
streamlined, all-inclusive, administratively elegant email system, and I'm
not sure it exists (without running out and buying a Mirapoint box which I'm
sure is prohibitively priced for my needs).

Thanks for your time,

Andrew



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