Dear Sir,
I am a fan of Linux O.S. & have newly joined a local Engineering Institute as
"Linux Administrator" a month ago. Presently, there are both Linux & Microsoft
solutions. Three Linux Red Hat -- 6.2 Servers are providing Mail, Samba
connectivity & Squid services respectively. My problem occurs at the Mail
Server, which was installed & configured a year ago by someone else. The
description is as follows:
Sendmail is configured as the SMTP Server, while Fetchmail is performing the
mail retrieving process from a remote site where the institute's Domain is
already registered. After the retrieval, Procmail performs the local delivery
to the users' local home folders. A local user account "khi" is used for the
fetchmail process. The .fetchmailrc and .procmailrc files reside in the
/home/khi/ folder. Now the problem.....................
When I send mail to more than one user locally, or through Net, each user
receives mails equal to the number of users specified in the Address Header. In
other words, each gets copies of that mail equal to the numbers of users
destined. Likewise, I've also defined some aliases in the /etc/aliases file. If
a mail is sent to a specific alias having two or more users, each receives the
mails equal to number of users defined in that alias. For instance, there is an
entry like this in the /etc/alias file:
netadmins: user1, user2, user3
While if a mail is sent to netadmins, every user in that alias receives three
copies of that mail, since the users are three in number.
I'm also attaching herewith a copy of my "/etc/sendmail.cf", ".fetchmailrc", &
".procmailrc" files.
Please assist me to find the exact problem and its location. Also I need help
about the Procmail process. Please guide me through the whole process of my
Mail's site.
I'm also unable to find the answers of the following:
1) Is Sendmail involved in local delivery of mails to local users, within the
local LAN?
2) Does Sendmail service need to be enabled to perform the local delivery to
local users within the LAN?
3) If Sendmail service is disabled, then who would be responsible for the local
delivery of mails to local users?
4) After Fetchmail fetches the mail from the remote site, what are the steps
performed at the local distribution of mails & when &
where Procmail is involved?
5) What is the significance of "/var/spool/mail" directory, & when it's used by
whom?
6) Also help me to understand the Fetchmail & Procmail processes in this Mail
Servers' Role.
I look forward for your quick reply,
Thanking you in anticipation & thanking you for your time,
Linux Admin,
Rizwan.