qmail-upgrade(7) Device and Network Interfaces qmail-upgrade(7)
NAME
qmail-upgrade - user-visible differences between qmail and
sendmail
INTRODUCTION
You will notice some differences when the system switches
from sendmail to qmail.
1. qmail-local sends incoming mail to ~you/Mailbox by
default, not /usr/spool/mail/you. Your system adminis-
trator has changed your MAIL environment variable so
that your mail reader looks for ~you/Mailbox.
(/usr/spool/mail is a massive security problem.)
2. qmail-local pays no attention to .forward. It has a
much better mechanism, .qmail, so that you can handle
not only forwarding but even your own mailing lists.
See below for more details.
3. qmail-local pays no attention to /etc/aliases. Your
system administrator can use the .qmail mechanism
instead. See below.
4. qmail does not support the \you mechanism for ignoring
aliases. The .qmail mechanism is much more flexible;
see below.
5. qmail-inject has a completely different philosophy from
sendmail on interpreting non-fully-qualified host
names. It uses fixed rules, not DNS. Some examples at
UIC:
russet -> russet.math.uic.edu
newton -> newton.math.uic.edu
ut.ee -> ut.ee (a host in Estonia)
ut.ee+ -> ut.ee.uic.edu
uicvm+ -> uicvm.uic.edu
Here the default domain name (for hosts without dots)
is math.uic.edu, and the plus domain name is uic.edu.
6. Unlike sendmail, qmail-inject doesn't replace host
names with canonical names. Example: qmail-inject
won't change postmaster@ftp.cs.berkeley.edu in your
header to postmaster@kohler.cs.berkeley.edu.
7. qmail-local adds a new field, Delivered-To, before
every delivery. It uses the contents of Delivered-To
to prevent mail forwarding loops.
8. If you send a message with only Bcc recipients, qmail-
inject will add Cc: recipient list not shown:;, rather
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qmail-upgrade(7) Device and Network Interfaces qmail-upgrade(7)
than sendmail's privacy-invading Apparently-To header
field.
QMAIL MAILING LISTS
sendmail deals with aliases, forwarding, and mailing lists
at the very heart of the mail system.
qmail takes a radically different approach. It gives you
the power to set up your own mailing lists without pestering
your system administrator.
Under qmail, you are in charge of all addresses of the form
you-anything. The delivery of you-anything is controlled by
~you/.qmail-anything, a file in your home directory.
For example, if you want to set up a bug-of-the-month-club
mailing list, you can put a list of addresses into
~you/.qmail-botmc. Any mail to you-botmc will be forwarded
to all of those addresses. Mail directly to you is con-
trolled by ~you/.qmail. You can even set up a catch-all,
~you/.qmail-default, to handle unknown you- addresses.
Your .qmail files, like your old .forward, may list files,
forwarding addresses, or other programs to run. (But beware
that the syntax is a bit different; see dot-qmail(5) for
more details.) qmail-local automatically detects forwarding
loops the instant they occur, even if they happen indirectly
through other hosts.
As a helpful special case, if a .qmail file is empty, it
refers to ~you/Mailbox. For example, if you touch
~you/.qmail-direct, mail for you-direct will act like \you
did under sendmail.
Addresses that don't contain a username are handled by the
alias user. For example, your system administrator has set
up ~alias/.qmail-postmaster to handle mail for Postmaster.
(Note to administrators: ~alias doesn't apply to addresses
that start with a user name, with certain exceptions.)
SEE ALSO
addresses(5), dot-qmail(5), envelopes(5), qmail-header(8),
qmail-inject(8)
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