8. Features

8.1 Auto-responder

It is possible to create auto responders for virtual domains accounts. You do not need to create any accounts (but you are allowed to). The auto-responder mechanism works in parallel with normal account delivery. Whenever a message is sent to an auto-responder address, a file is returned to the sender. For a vdomain foo.com, if you create a file /var/spool/vmail/files/foo.com/somename.auto, it will be sent whenever a messages is directed to somename@foo.com.

The file must contain a complete email messages including the header. Ideally, the header must contain a Subject: and Reply-To: entry.

If the account somename exists, the messages will be also delivered. If somename is an alias, it will be resolved and the auto-responder mechanism will be executed. Using this, multiple email address may point to the same auto-reponder file.

Bulk messages are ignored.

8.2 Vacation

It is possible to setup a per-user vacation mechanism. The vacation mechanism relies on one text file and an index. The index records the address having already received the vacation text, avoiding to send over and over the same message to the same people.

The vacation text is a complete email message, including the header. It must contains a Subject: tag.

The index file acts also as a control. If the file does not exist the vacation service is off. So to turn it on, you have to create it empty. The vacation mechanism will maintain it.

The vacation files may be located either in the user home directory or in the directory /var/spool/vmail/files/the-domain. The later is generally used by the system administrator when the users do not have any access to the system beside the imap and pop-3 services.

In /var/spool/vmail/files/the-domain directory, the files are called user.vacation and user.vacation.db (user is the user account ID).

In the user home directory, they are called .vacation and .vacation.db.

Allowing users to change their vacation message

A special web entry allows any vdomain email user to control the vacation mechanism. It can be seen in the "Special entries to Linuxconf" page. The URL is "http://your_server:98/htmlmod:vacation:"