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NAME

       dot-qmail - control the delivery of mail messages

DESCRIPTION

       Normally  the  qmail-local  program delivers each incoming message to your system mailbox,
       homedir/Mailbox, where homedir is your home directory.

       It can instead write the mail to a different file or  directory,  forward  it  to  another
       address,  distribute  it  to  a  mailing  list,  or  even execute programs, all under your
       control.

THE QMAIL FILE

       To change qmail-local's behavior, set up a .qmail file in your home directory.

       .qmail contains one or more lines.  Each line  is  a  delivery  instruction.   qmail-local
       follows  each  instruction  in  turn.   There are five types of delivery instructions: (1)
       comment; (2) program; (3) forward; (4) mbox; (5) maildir.

       (1)  A comment line begins with a number sign:

                 # this is a comment

            qmail-local ignores the line.

       (2)  A program line begins with a vertical bar:

                 |preline /usr/ucb/vacation djb

            qmail-local takes the rest of the line as a command to  supply  to  sh.   See  qmail-
            command(8) for further information.

       (3)  A forward line begins with an ampersand:

                 &me@new.job.com

            qmail-local  takes  the  rest  of  the line as a mail address; it uses qmail-queue to
            forward the message to that address.  The address  must  contain  a  fully  qualified
            domain name; it must not contain extra spaces, angle brackets, or comments:

                 # the following examples are WRONG
                 &me@new
                 &<me@new.job.com>
                 & me@new.job.com
                 &me@new.job.com (New Address)

            If the address begins with a letter or number, you may leave out the ampersand:

                 me@new.job.com

            Note that qmail-local omits its new Return-Path line when forwarding messages.

       (4)  An mbox line begins with a slash or dot, and does not end with a slash:

                 /home/djb/Mailbox.sos

            qmail-local takes the entire line as a filename.  It appends the mail message to that
            file, using flock-style file  locking  if  possible.   qmail-local  stores  the  mail
            message in mbox format, as described in mbox(5).

            WARNING:  On  many systems, anyone who can read a file can flock it, and thus hold up
            qmail-local's delivery forever.  Do not deliver mail to a publicly accessible file!

            If qmail-local is able to lock the file, but has trouble writing to it (because,  for
            example,  the  disk  is full), it will truncate the file back to its original length.
            However, it cannot prevent mailbox corruption if the system crashes during delivery.

       (5)  A maildir line begins with a slash or dot, and ends with a slash:

                 /home/djb/Maildir/

            qmail-local takes the entire line as the name of a directory in maildir  format.   It
            reliably  stores  the  incoming  message  in that directory.  See maildir(5) for more
            details.

       If .qmail has the execute bit set, it must not contain any program lines, mbox  lines,  or
       maildir  lines.  If qmail-local sees any such lines, it will stop and indicate a temporary
       failure.

       If .qmail is completely empty (0 bytes long), or does not exist, qmail-local  follows  the
       defaultdelivery instructions set by your system administrator; normally defaultdelivery is
       ./Mailbox, so qmail-local appends the mail message to Mailbox in mbox format.

       .qmail may contain extra spaces and tabs at the end of a line.  Blank lines  are  allowed,
       but not for the first line of .qmail.

       If .qmail is world-writable, qmail-local stops and indicates a temporary failure.

SAFE QMAIL EDITING

       Incoming  messages can arrive at any moment.  If you want to safely edit your .qmail file,
       first set the sticky bit on your home directory:

            chmod +t $HOME

       qmail-local will temporarily defer delivery of any message to you if your  home  directory
       is sticky (or group-writable or other-writable, which should never happen).  Make sure to

            chmod -t $HOME

       when you are done!  It's a good idea to test your new .qmail file as follows:

            qmail-local -n $USER ~ $USER '' '' '' '' ./Mailbox

EXTENSION ADDRESSES

       In the qmail system, you control all local addresses of the form user-anything, as well as
       the address user itself, where user is your account name.  Delivery  to  user-anything  is
       controlled by the file homedir/.qmail-anything.  (These rules may be changed by the system
       administrator; see qmail-users(5).)

       The alias user controls all other addresses.  Delivery to local is controlled by the  file
       homedir/.qmail-local, where homedir is alias's home directory.

       In the following description, qmail-local is handling a message addressed to local@domain,
       where local is controlled by .qmail-ext.  Here is what it does.

       If .qmail-ext is completely empty, qmail-local follows  the  defaultdelivery  instructions
       set by your system administrator.

       If .qmail-ext doesn't exist, qmail-local will try some default .qmail files.  For example,
       if ext is foo-bar, qmail-local will try first .qmail-foo-bar, then .qmail-foo-default, and
       finally  .qmail-default.   If  none  of  these exist, qmail-local will bounce the message.
       (Exception: for the basic user address, qmail-local treats a nonexistent .qmail  the  same
       as an empty .qmail.)

       WARNING:  For  security,  qmail-local replaces any dots in ext with colons before checking
       .qmail-ext.  For convenience,  qmail-local  converts  any  uppercase  letters  in  ext  to
       lowercase.

       When  qmail-local  forwards  a message as instructed in .qmail-ext (or .qmail-default), it
       checks whether .qmail-ext-owner exists.  If so, it uses local-owner@domain as the envelope
       sender  for  the  forwarded  message.   Otherwise  it  retains  the envelope sender of the
       original message.  Exception: qmail-local always retains the original envelope  sender  if
       it is the empty address or #@[], i.e., if this is a bounce message.

       qmail-local  also supports variable envelope return paths (VERPs): if .qmail-ext-owner and
       .qmail-ext-owner-default both exist,  it  uses  local-owner-@domain-@[]  as  the  envelope
       sender.   This  will  cause  a  recipient  recip@reciphost  to  see  an envelope sender of
       local-owner-recip=reciphost@domain.

ERROR HANDLING

       If a delivery instruction  fails,  qmail-local  stops  immediately  and  reports  failure.
       qmail-local  handles forwarding after all other instructions, so any error in another type
       of delivery will prevent all forwarding.

       If a program returns exit code 99, qmail-local ignores all succeeding lines in .qmail, but
       it still pays attention to previous forward lines.

       To  set  up  independent  instructions,  where  a  temporary  or  permanent failure in one
       instruction does not affect the others, move each instruction into a  separate  .qmail-ext
       file, and set up a central .qmail file that forwards to all of the .qmail-exts.  Note that
       qmail-local can handle any number of forward lines simultaneously.

SEE ALSO

       envelopes(5),  maildir(5),  mbox(5),  qmail-users(5),  qmail-local(8),   qmail-command(8),
       qmail-queue(8), qmail-lspawn(8)

                                                                                     dot-qmail(5)