OpenMTA 1.0 System Administrator's Handbook


Table of Contents
1. System Requirements
Hardware
Operating Systems
2. Introduction
3. Obtaining a copy of OpenMTA
4. Installation
5. Managing mailboxes
Creating mailboxes
Creating aliases
Deleting mailboxes
6. Running the maild(8) daemon
Binding to a specific network interface
Enabling stealth mode
7. Retrieving mail
8. Where to obtain help

Chapter 1. System Requirements

OpenMTA is written in C and compiled with GCC on the OpenBSD/amd64 platform, but should be portable to other POSIX-compliant systems.


Hardware

Currently supported and tested hardware architectures are the Intel 80x86, AMD64, Sparc, Sparc64.


Operating Systems

Currently supported and tested operating sysetms are OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and GNU/Linux.

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Chapter 2. Introduction


This handbook is intended to help system administrators install the OpenMTA mail server.


Chapter 3. Obtaining a copy of OpenMTA


Download the latest source code from the OpenMTA web site.


Chapter 4. Installation


Install OpenMTA by running ./configure, make, and make install.

It is also necessary to create a '_maild' user account and a 'vmail' group for the maild program. Here's how to do it on OpenBSD:


groupadd vmail
useradd -g vmail -L daemon -d /var/empty -s /sbin/nologin _maild
    

To start maild automatically every time the system boots, add the following commands to /etc/rc.local:


if [ -x /usr/local/sbin/maild ]; then
        echo -n ' maild';       /usr/local/sbin/maild
fi

    


Chapter 5. Managing mailboxes

This chapter will cover the most common tasks related to mailbox management.


Creating mailboxes

In a traditional mailsystem, mailboxes are automatically created for system accounts. OpenMTA does not use the system mailboxes located at /var/mail, so you must create a mailbox for each virtual user.

The easiest way to create a mailbox is to use the mailuser(1) utility that is distributed with OpenMTA.

For example, to add a mailbox named 'john.smith@foo.com', run:


mailuser -a john.smith@foo.com
    

You can also create mailboxes by hand using the install(1) command. The following example creates a mailbox for 'foo@bar.com':


install -d -m 730 -o root -g vmail /var/mail/store/bar.com/foo/{new,tmp,cur}
    


Creating aliases

An alias allows one mailbox to have multiple alternative email addresses; each alternative address is called an 'alias'. Traditional mailservers use a file called /etc/aliases to store a list of aliases, but OpenMTA does not.

To create an alias in OpenMTA, create a symbolic link. For example, to have all mail addressed to 'sales@foo.com' be delivered to 'john.doe@acme.com', run this:


    cd /var/mail/store/acme.com
    ln -s john.doe sales
    

Remember: maild runs in a chroot environment, so don't create absolute symbolic links that contain '/var/mail'.

Deleting mailboxes

Use the following command to delete a mailbox named 'john.smith@foo.com':


mailuser -d john.smith@foo.com
    


Chapter 6. Running the maild(8) daemon


Under normal circumstances, it is not necessary to pass any command line options to the maild program. For a list of available options, see the maild(8) manual page.

Start the server by issuing the following command:


/usr/local/sbin/maild
    


Binding to a specific network interface

Normally, maild listens on all available network interfaces. To listen only on a specific interface, use the '-i' command line option.


Enabling stealth mode

As an optional way of increasing system security, maild can run in "stealth mode". When running in this mode, no additional information will be sent to the client during the initial greeting. If the client attempts to deliver a message to a mailbox that doesn't exist, the message will be silently discarded.

To enable stealth mode, use the '-s' command line option.


Chapter 7. Retrieving mail

OpenMTA comes with built-in POP3, IMAP, and Webmail servers.


Chapter 8. Where to obtain help


If you have any problems installing or using OpenMTA, send a message to .