Linuxconf Migration
===================

For those of you who still remember it and use it, Linuxconf
[http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/linuxconf/] and its patched UW-IMAP companion VIMAP
[http://vimap.sourceforge.net/] had a really simple way of doing virtual
domains. They use standard passwd/shadow files, except each domain has its own
files, such as:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
/etc/vmail/passwd.domain1.com
/etc/vmail/shadow.domain1.com
/etc/vmail/passwd.domain2.com
/etc/vmail/shadow.domain2.com
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mail is stored in <mbox format> [MailboxFormat.mbox.txt]. The INBOX exists
in '/var/spool/vmail/domain.com/user' and the other mailboxes in
'/vhome/domain.com/home/user'.

To make Dovecot Linuxconf compatible, use these settings:

---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # passwd-like file for use with Linuxconf virtual domains
  passdb passwd-file {
    # Path for passwd-file
    args = /etc/vmail/shadow.%d
  }
  # passwd-like file for use with Linuxconf virtual domains
  userdb passwd-file {
    # Path for passwd-file
    args = /etc/vmail/passwd.%d
  }
mail_location = mbox:/vhome/%d/home/%n:INBOX=/var/spool/vmail/%d/%n
# Or if you want to place Dovecot's index/cache files to a separate directory
# to avoid adding them to backups:
#mail_location =
mbox:/vhome/%d/home/%n:INBOX=/var/spool/vmail/%d/%n:INDEX=/nobackup/imap-indexes/%d/%n
# Note that you may need to modify imap-indexes directory's permissions so
# that Dovecot can create the directories.
---%<-------------------------------------------------------------------------

You also need to rename all the '.mailboxlist' files to '.subscriptions' to
preserve the mailbox subscriptions.

The Linuxconf virtual email system is actually pretty good especially if you
are merging several existing single domain servers into one virtual domain
server. All you have to do is copy over your existing passwd/shadow files into
the /etc/vmail folder and rename them. You will need to do some editing on the
passwd file to point to where you wish to store your email.

Exim works very well with this configuration. The Exim Wiki has a detailed
discription of how to configure Exim [http://www.exim.org/eximwiki/Linuxconf]
to work with this virtual user structute.

More information about Linuxconf can be found at their Home Site
[http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/linuxconf/]. Exim [http://www.exim.org] info here. 

(This file was created from the wiki on 2007-06-15 04:42)