On 2009-04-06, at 0836, Mohsen Pahlevanzadeh wrote:

You & every mail-man saw Big Picture of qmail. I assumed qmail is black box.I want to extend big picture, i use qmail admin ,Devocot & vpopmail. I draw a few relation.Can you tell me whether i draw correct?Also i
need to if i didn't draw relation tell me that i will draw that.

the way i've always thought about it, is that there are three
"phases", and it's easier to think of each "phase" as a separate set
of operations.

(1) message being sent INTO the queue, whether they originate from
another process on the local machine, or from some other server (via
qmail-smtpd or something similiar.)

(2) message being moved OUT OF the queue, either going into a local
mailbox, or being forwarded to some other server.

(3) for messages in the mailbox, access to those mailboxes via POP3 or
IMAP, or webmail (which usually, but not always, involves IMAP.)

i find it's easier to think of each "phase" of the process separately.

i made some diagrams a few years ago, which document the first two
parts of the process.

http://qmail.jms1.net/qmail-1-incoming.pdf http://qmail.jms1.net/qmail-2-delivery.pdf

i've been meaning to re-do them as a single multi-page PDF file, and
include a third page about how dovecot, squirrelmail, and other
"mailbox access" programs fit into the picture. your message is the
kick i needed, i'm working on that as we speak... the first two pages
will be pretty much identical to what's on the web site now, and the
third page will cover how dovecot, squirrelmail, desktop MUAs, and
other "user accessing the contents of a mailbox" programs fit into the
picture.

as for your diagram...

(1) maybe i'm missing something, but it doesn't make any sense to me
at all. maybe you and i are thinking on different levels, or looking
at things from different angles.

(2) i'm surprised djb's list actually allowed it through to begin with
(which is why i'm including the URLs for my own PDF files, rather than
attaching them.)

| John M. Simpson --- KG4ZOW --- Programmer At Large | | http://www.jms1.net/ <jms1@jms1.net> |

| http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173 |