NAME
masqmail - An offline Mail Transfer Agent
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/masqmail [-C file] [-odq] [-bd] [-qinterval]
/usr/sbin/masqmail [-odq] [-bs]
/usr/sbin/masqmail [-bp]
/usr/sbin/masqmail [-q]
/usr/sbin/masqmail [-qo [name]]
/usr/sbin/masqmail [-odq] [-g [name]]
/usr/sbin/masqmail [-odq] [-go [name]]
/usr/sbin/masqmail [-t] [-oi] [-f address] [--] address...
/usr/sbin/mailq
DESCRIPTION
Masqmail is a mail server designed for hosts that do not have a
permanent internet connection e.g. a home network or a single host at
home. It has special support for connections to different ISPs. It
replaces sendmail or other MTAs such as qmail or exim. It can also act
as a POP3 client (if this functionality has not been disabled at build
configuration time).
OPTIONS
Since masqmail is intended to replace sendmail, it uses the same
command line options, but not all are implemented. There are also two
additional options, which are unique to masqmail (-qo connection and
-g)
-- Not a `real' option, it means that all following arguments are
to be understood as arguments and not as options even if they
begin with a leading dash `-'. Mutt is known to call sendmail
with this option.
-bd Run as daemon, accepting connections, usually on port 25 if not
configured differently. This is usually used in the startup
script at system boot and together with the -q option (see
below).
-bi Old sendmail rebuilds its alias database when invoked with this
option. Masqmail ignores it. Masqmail reads directly from the
file given with `alias_file' in the config file.
-bp Show the messages in the queue. Same as calling masqmail as
`mailq'.
-bs Accept SMTP commands from stdin. Some mailers (e.g. pine) use
this option as an interface. It can also be used to call
masqmail from inetd.
-B arg arg is usually 8BITMIME. Some mailers use this to indicate
that the message contains characters > 127. Masqmail is 8-bit
clean and ignores this, so you do not have to recompile elm,
which is very painful ;-). Note though that this violates some
conventions: masqmail does not convert 8 bit messages to any
MIME format if it encounters a mail server which does not
advertise its 8BITMIME capability, masqmail does not advertise
this itself. This is the same practice as that of exim (but
different to sendmail).
-bV Show version information.
-C filename
Use another configuration than /etc/masqmail/masqmail.conf.
Useful for debugging purposes. If not invoked by a privileged
user, masqmail will drop all privileges.
-d number
Set the debug level. This takes precedence before the value of
`debug_level' in the configuration file. Read the warning in
the description of the latter.
-f [address]
Set the return path address to address. Only root, the user
mail and anyone in group mail is allowed to do that.
-F [string]
Set the full sender name (in the From: header) to string.
-g [name]
Get mail (using pop3 or apop), using the configurations given
with get.name in the main configuration. Without name, all get
configurations will be used. See also masqmail.get(5)
-go [interval] [name]
Can be followed by a connection name. Use this option in your
script which starts as soon as a link to the internet has been
set up (usually ip-up). When masqmail is called with this
option, the specified get configuration(s) is(are) read and mail
will be retrieved from servers on the internet. The name is
defined in the configuration (see online_gets.name).
If called with an interval option (recognized by a digit as the
first characater), masqmail starts as a daemon and tries to get
mail in these intervals. It checks for the online status first.
Example: `masqmail -go 5m' will retrieve mail every five
minutes.
If called without name, the online status is determined with the
configured method (see online_detect in masqmail.conf(5)).
-i Same as -oi, see below.
-Mrm list
Remove given messages from the queue. Only allowed for
privileged users. The identifiers of messages are listed in the
output of masqmail -bp (mailq).
-oem If the -oi ist not also given, always return with a non zero
return code. Maybe someone tells me what this is good for...
-odb Deliver in background. Masqmail always does this, which makes
this option pretty much useless.
-odq Do not attempt to deliver immediately. Any messages will be
queued until the next queue running process picks them up and
delivers them. You get the same effect by setting the do_queue
option in /etc/masqmail/masqmail.conf.
-oi A dot as a single character in a line does not terminate the
message.
-q [interval]
If not given with an argument, run a queue process, i.e. try to
deliver all messages in the queue. Masqmail sends only to those
addresses that are on the local net, not to those that are
outside. Use -qo for those.
If you have configured inetd to start masqmail, you can use this
option in a cron job which starts in regular time intervals, to
mimic the same effect as starting masqmail with -bd -q30m.
An argument may be a time interval i.e. a numerical value
followed by one of the letters. s,m,h,d,w which are interpreted
as seconds, minutes, hours, days or weeks respectively.
Example: -q30m. Masqmail starts as a daemon and a queue runner
process will be started automatically once in this time
interval. This is usually used together with -bd (see above).
-qo [name]
Can be followed by a connection name. Use this option in your
script which starts as soon as a link to the internet has been
set up (usually ip-up). When masqmail is called with this
option, the specified route configuration is read and the queued
mail with destinations on the internet will be sent. The name
is defined in the configuration (see online_routes.name).
If called without name the online status is determined with the
configured method (see online_detect in masqmail.conf(5))
-t Read recipients from headers. Delete `Bcc:' headers. (Since
0.2.25, masqmail deletes Bcc: headers in all cases.) If any
arguments are given, these are interpreted as recipient
addresses and the message will not be sent to these, although
they might appear in To:, Cc:, or Bcc: headers. I.e. the set of
argument recipients is ``substracted'' from the set of header
recipients.
This behavior is similar to exim's and smail's. Postfix, in
contrast, adds the arguments to the set of header recipients.
Sendmail seems to behave differently, depending on the version.
See exim(8) for further information.
-v Log also to stdout. Currently, some log messages are marked as
`write to stdout' and additionally, all messages with priority
`LOG_ALERT' and `LOG_WARNING' will be written to stdout if this
option is given. It is disabled in daemon mode.
ENVIRONMENT FOR PIPES AND MDAS
For security reasons, before any pipe command from an alias expansion
or an mda is called, the environment variables will be completely
discarded and newly set up. These are:
SENDER, RETURN_PATH - the return path.
SENDER_DOMAIN - the domain part of the return path.
SENDER_LOCAL - the local part of the return path.
RECEIVED_HOST - the host the message was received from (unless local).
LOCAL_PART, USER, LOGNAME - the local part of the (original) recipient.
MESSAGE_ID - the unique message id. This is not necessarily identical
with the Message ID as given in the Message ID: header.
QUALIFY_DOMAIN - the domain which will be appended to unqualified
addresses.
FILES
/etc/masqmail/masqmail.conf is the main configuration for masqmail.
Depending on the settings in this file, you will also have other
configuration files in /etc/masqmail/.
/var/spool/masqmail/ is the spool directory where masqmail stores its
spooled messages and the uniq pop ids.
/var/spool/mail/ is the directory where locally delivered mail will be
put, if not configured differently in masqmail.conf.
/var/log/masqmail/ is the directory where masqmail stores its log
mesages. This can also be somewhere else if configured differently by
your sysadmin or the package mantainer.
CONFORMING TO
RFC 821, 822, 1869, 1870, 2197, 2554 (SMTP)
RFC 1725, 1939 (POP3)
RFC 1321 (MD5)
RFC 2195 (CRAM-MD5)
AUTHOR
Masqmail was written by Oliver Kurth. It is now maintained by Markus
Schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>.
You will find the newest version of masqmail at
http://marmaro.de/prog/masqmail/. There is also a mailing list, you
will find information about it at masqmail's main site.
BUGS
Please report them to the mailing list.
SEE ALSO
masqmail.conf(5), masqmail.route(5), masqmail.get(5),
masqmail.aliases(5)