[Dovecot] adding new user to dovecot

[Wouter Van Hemel]

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004, Kartik Vaidyanathan wrote:

>  Hi,
>
> I have actually configured dovecot because i required a mail server in
> order to build a mailing list manager.A mail list manager is something
> in the likes of yahoogroups, where each group in my case must have a
> mailbox.
>

You need a MTA, such as postfix, qmail, sendmail, exim, etc. It's more
important than an imap server for what you want to do.

Actually, I don't really understand why you need an imap server when
making a mailinglist manager.

> 1. I am using Debian OS.
> The software that i am creating , which is going developed in JSP, will
> take a new users name and password and create a account for him by
> executing a shell script in my linux machine.I assume yahoo also does
> something similar to this to create new mail boxes for any new
> user.Please correct me if i am wrong.
>

I don't know, I don't work at yahoo. But I think they create virtual users
in database systems for email, I can't imagine all of the users they have
are in one passwd file on one tiny machine.

> In fact this very mail that i have received from you is because i have
> subscribed to the dovecott mailing list. How do you think dovecott has
> been able to accomplish this. Is it not because that dovecott has a
> mailbox in the group name "dovecott" in some system, that internally
> does the sending of mails to all those in the groups refering to some
> database.
>

Dovecot doesn't have anything to do with that. It's mostly the MTA, aided
by the mailing list manager.

Here's how majordomo (popular mailinglist manager) works:

Bob wants to subscribe to the pigeonhole mailinglist. He emails or enters
his email address in a web form so it ends up in a database file with all
the other users on that list. The mailinglist manager's job is to take
care of adding (or removing) email addresses to (from) that file; it adds
Bob's address.

When an email is sent to pigeonhole at pigeonhole.org, the mailer daemon
(MTA) receives this email, and instead of delivering it to a local user,
either it (1) delivers it to a pipe - it passes the email to the
mailinglist software, which then just generates an email that replaces the
original destination with the list of email addresses; or (2) the mailer
daemon itself forwards the email by alias expansion to the list of email
addresses the mailinglist software made.

In the former case, the mailinglist manager reads the original message and
replaces the address with all those in the list's database; in the latter
case, basically the only thing a mailinglist manager does, is taking care
of an error-free database file with email addresses so the MTA can forward
the email to the addresses in this file.

Because Bob's email address is in this file, his address will be inserted
in the headers of the message, and he will receive the email.

> 2.Will the mail server support me in anyway by giving me some
> functionality to add users, thereby creating maildir's (imap) for the
> users.
>

No, adding users is not the job of a mail server daemon. Or of an imap
server. Usually, you don't allow people to add users to your system, for
obvious reasons.

If you want to add users to a mailing list, you don't need accounts for
those users, only when you also want to provide them with an email address.

What do you want to do: provide email addresses, or a mailinglist manager?

> 3.Dont I need to know the admin login and passwd, to create users?
>

Yes, ofcourse. Unless your users are in a database server, in that case
you need the ability to add records to that database.

(Shared webhosting accounts usually allow adding virtual users, if that's
the reasoning behind your question.)

> 3.Lastly i know this is not that prevalent a question -> I was told mail
> man does a similar job as to what my software will do.Do you know how
> mailman works (or even yahoogroups)?.
>

Not precisely, but pretty much like I said above. You can check out the
documentation and source code of said software.

Yahoogroups probably uses custom written software, but still based on the
simple approach of a mailinglist manager taking care of a list of
subscribers, and the mailer daemon either itself or by aid of an external
program multiplicating the recipients.


A mailinglist manager has nothing to do with Dovecot. Dovecot has nothing
to do with *sending* email, only with retrieving it from a system with
IMAP of POP. It's the end-of-the-line for emails, delivery to final
destination; it does not forward or duplicate.

> Please enlighten me on the above issues.
> Thanks a lot for you time.
>

I'll send you the bill later. ;)

> Regards
> Kartik
>
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