Re: [cobalt-developers] Second VIRTUSERTABLE

[John Keegan <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve - 

Thank you very much for your insight to this problem.

> You can have multiple alias files, but not virtual user files.  If
> you discover otherwise, please share with us.

What is the difference between an alias file and a virtual user file?

> I built software for a client a year or so ago that does just that.  The
> client's running it on a RaQ3.  The software actually rewrites Sendmail, DNS
> and Apache files and runs some scripts in order to allow clients to manage
> email redirection and web redirection accounts via a password-protected web
> interface with MySQL backend.  Sounds similar to what you're attempting.

Very similar. I already have web redirection running, but I am looking to do
mail redirection in a safe and reliable manner, hence this post.

>> therefore there would be no file locking issues.
> 
> This is definitely an issue.  It was easy to manage in the system I was
> building for because the GUI was only going to be used by the server admin
> and only rarely.  I did encounter problems with one or both of the
> virtusertable and special aliases files sometimes not being written to as
> expected.  So on each update the original files were backed up, I worked wit
> h temp files and file sizes were compared and if the byte count of the live
> file was outside a threshold range the previous snapshot was reverted to and
> an email was generated which was sent to the server admin.  Probably not
> ideal, but it worked and the software is still being used.

That's an interesting concept. If I have to go in and modify the
virtusertable I will try to add some checking like you describe.

> I hope some of what I shared is useful.

Very much so, thanks again.

-- 
John Keegan
john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://RackShare.com