masqmail
view README @ 56:f6a6f55b7b9e
added old manual from the old website
it is dated May/July 2000
| author | meillo@marmaro.de |
|---|---|
| date | Sat, 29 May 2010 21:51:13 +0200 |
| parents | |
| children | bce7604e0465 |
line source
1 MasqMail README
3 MasqMail is a mail server designed for hosts that are not permanently
4 connected to the internet. It handles outgoing messages, i.e. those
5 that are to be sent over the non-permanent link (usually a ppp or slip
6 connection over a modem or ISDN adapter) specially and delivers them
7 only when explicitely told to do so. There is support for multiple
8 providers, it is possible to write different configurations for each
9 one. The configuration chosen is selected at delivery time, so that if
10 for example a delivery of a message failed while connected with
11 provider 1, it may be delivered when connected to provider 2. For each
12 provider another mail host (or none) can be specified.
14 MasqMail provides (a yet simple) mechanism to rewrite headers, also
15 depending on the current connection. This makes it possible to deliver
16 messages with a return address on the local network which will be
17 rewitten at delivery time. The purpose of this is:
19 - to allow delivery failure messages that are produced on the local
20 network to be delivered immediately, while those that are produced
21 outside can be delivered to a mailbox on the internet, to be retrieved
22 later.
24 - to give mail servers a return address which they can accept if they
25 check for spam mail. Many mail servers require a return address which
26 has the same domain as the server it is getting the message from. If
27 you normally connect to only one provider, this is usually not a
28 problem as you can configure your mailer to a fixed address (but then
29 there is still the problem with the failure messages...), but it is a
30 problem if you use different ones from time to time.
32 MasqMail shall once be a complete replacement for sendmail (or other
33 MTAs such as exim, qmail or smail) on a local network, but it is NOT
34 supposed to be installed in a network with a permanent internet
35 connection (at least if it is not behind a secure firewall) because
36 it has no ability to check for undesired relaying or spam filtering.
38 Missing, but soon to be realized features:
40 - .forward file support (alias file is supported)
41 - mailer demon messages (mail from the server in cases of delivery failures
42 or malformed addresses)
44 Future plans are:
46 - initiate connections on its own
47 - integration to the masqdialer system (mserver) as an option
48 - possibly a pop3 server
50 For installation instructions, see INSTALL.
52 Bugs: MasqMail is still very young, and there are probably at lot of
53 bugs in it. I need every bug reported to me! If you do, please send me
54 the configuration files, the logs, the version, and a good description
55 on how to reproduce the error. The more bug reports I get, the better
56 masqmail will get!
58 CREDITS:
59 --------
61 I would like to thank everyone who has submitted suggestions and bug
62 reports. Special thanks to:
64 Gregor Hoffleit for beta testing and his suggestions for delivering
65 mail immediately when online.
66 Gregor Hoffleit again for supplying a patch which made maqmail work with mutt.
67 And again for making the Debian package. And more patches.
69 Dale Perkel for patiently trying to make MM compile and run with libc5 and
70 various bug reports.
72 Andre Masloch for finding most bugs.
74 Edouard G. Parmelan for many patches and bug reports
76 Iain Lea for the Redhat spec file
78 ...and many others
79 --
80 Oliver Kurth <oku@masqmail.cx>
81 http://masqmail.cx/
82 last change: Feb. 3, 2000