Scalix and /etc/aliases

[smorin]

Good afternoon,

Currently we have an OpenMail server with sendmail handling the smtp relaying. Mail gets sorted with the entries in /etc/aliases to either OpenMail or some external address.

Here's an example of the /etc/aliases file:

[...]
testuser: test.user/OpenMail ( This routes to an OpenMail mailbox )
tuser: testuser (This routes to the testuser alias above )
externaluser: external@somewhere.else (This routes to an external email)
[...]

I'm unclear as to how to accomplish this is Scalix. Our aliases file is quite large and it would be time consuming to re-enter all entries with the Scalix Administration console.

Thank you in advance for any and all assistance.

- Stephen Morin

[ScalixSupport]

Which version of OpenMail do you have installed on your machine and is your /etc/aliases file on the same machine ?

If so, you don't need to have so many aliases defined as the ommapsmtp process will handle this for you (if you have sendmail listening) or it will be handled by the SMTP relay (if that is your primary SMTP listener).

Scalix users can have multiple internet addresses defined so an entry for Test User/Openmail would be

S=User/G=Test/OU1=Openmail/IA=testuser@hostname=tuser@hostname

and both addresses will be routed to the same mailbox.

Creation of multiple addresses can be handled through the Web Admin interface by going to the Settings menu. This will set up the rules to determine auto creation, it will not affect existing users.

To update existing users (if you don't mind having all the addresses regenerated), you can use a short script such as:

Code: Select all

omshowu -m all | while read username
do
   ommodu -o "$username" -A
done

Assuming you have sendmail listening on port 25 of your external IP address, an incoming message will be checked against the SYSTEM directory via the ommapsmtp lookup. If the message is destined for a Scalix user, the Scalix mailer (unix.in) will be invoked. If it is not destined for a Scalix user, the message will be processed further by the sendmail rules which also includes the alias lookup. This allows you to retain your aliases for external users.

Please come back if you have any more questions.

Cheers

Dave

[smorin]

Thank you Dave for the reply.

We are currently using OpenMail 6.0 and are planning to migrate to Scalix 9.2.1. Also, the /etc/aliases file is on the same server as OpenMail.

I should mention that our /etc/aliases is quite complex, and contains entries such as:

- aliases going to an OpenMail mailbox and to an external address:
Example:
testuser: Test.User/Openmail,testuser@somewhere.else

- aliases going to multiple other aliases:
Example:
testgroup: user1, user2, user3

- We receive mail for the same aliases for two domains (@domain1, @domain2). Therefore mail meant for testuser@domain1 and testuser@domain2 is currently being routed to the same alias 'testuser'.

- Also there are aliases such as:

test123: testuser

....which would accept mail for test123@domain1 and test123@domain2 and send to the alias testuser.

Currently all of this alias routing is being done with sendmail. How to we get /etc/aliases to be processed first and how to we get /etc/aliases to send mail to Scalix mailboxes. This is currently done in our OpenMail 6.0 setup by:

1.) sendmail receives the mail
2.) sendmail processes the mail with /etc/aliases
3.) in /etc/aliases all of our OpenMail user mailboxes are aliased:
Example:
testuser: Test.User/Openmail
4.) mail sent to "testuser@domain1" or "testuser@domain2" will be send to the OpenMail mailbox "Test.User/Openmail".

Thank you for the help.

- Stephen Morin

[smorin]

Good afternoon David,

After investigating further, we've come to the realisation that we can just create groups and assign mailbox users and internet mail user to those. Also assign multiple aliases to mailboxes.

Now all we have to figure out is how to hide some of these entries from the address book.

Cheers,

- Stephen Morin

[ink]

We run a fairly tame aliases file with Scalix. It has entries such as

userA: blah@foo.com
userB: localguy1, localguy2
userC: | /pipe/to/some/program

It all works flawlessly, as long as the alias is NOT in the Scalix directory (userA) -- because sendmail only gets it after Scalix is finished.

[florian]

In general, we ask customers to avoid using /etc/aliases as this destroys the single point of administration; almost anything can be done within scalix.

in rare cases, where this is not wanted, the coexistence of sendmail and scalix works well.

Another option is to make sendmail the primary email listener; we can provide you with information on how to run such a setup.

-- f.

[ScalixSupport]

As well as Florian's point about administration, a large /etc/aliases file will take longer to process by newaliases because it will call the Scalix ommapsmtp command to look up the entry in the SYSTEM directory.

Cheers

Dave