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2. About this document & this patch...

The purpose of this patch is to create users' home directories when they first login either with a imap or pop3 client. It was developed in an afternoon and it is intended to be used in environments where the email accounts are managed using a database or some automatic process. It's been used in production environments with mysql, but it hasn't been deeply tested with ldap or any other authentication method (any feedback is welcome). This patch relies on some scripts that each administrator should write to adapt the whole system to his needs. Examples of those scripts are provided in the following sections of this manual.

This patch applies against:

It has been tested with Courier 0.36.0 and 0.37.2. However, this document may be out of date, so please refer to the specific documentation contained in the patch tarball (README_0.36.0, for example).

Since version 0.37.2 this patch also allows users in a virtual domain environment to use ``%'' or ``:'' as separator in usernames instead of the classical ``@''. For example, once the patch is applied, a user could login on the imap or pop3 server either as:

This patch translates the username in something valid right when the user types his name. Thus, any authentication module would see the correct name, with the ``%'' or ``:'' replaced by an ``@''.

You can find the latest version of this document and the mentioned software at http://www.commedia.it/ccontavalli/. If you have troubles/suggestions/corrections feel free to mail me at <ccontavalli at commedia.it>.

The patch was not meant for maildrop or courier-mta, although little effort must be taken to adapt to add complete support. I personally use postfix, and I'm not very interested in courier-mta nor in maildrop. I'm now working to document the process of integration of courier imap with postfix and a web interface. If you are interested in it, I may send by email the latest ``beta'' version of such paper (it will be available on this site when complete). Actually, it may take me a while to complete the whole document (I haven't had much time in the last few weeks).

Whatch out: a few version ago a bug in my patch that prevented courier from being compiled on many systems has been corrected thanks to Van Daele Bruno. If you had troubles using my patch, please try with the latest release available on my site. All the versions of the patch have been corrected.

Whatch out: if you had troubles getting the pop3 server to create the home directories go on to the section Configuration Parameters.

Watch out: I don't have much spare time in my life anymore, and don't have the time to actively upkeep my homepage and/or the courier patch. However, I'm quite happy about it, and will continue to release versions as soon as I realize a new version is availabile and somebody needs it (which may occur a couple months after the new release). So, do mail me if you need a recent version of my patch. I will be glad to provide it in a couple days and to upload it on my homepage.


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