Message: 13 Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 13:29:44 -0300 To: cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx From: Ariel Manzur <punto@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [cobalt-users] FREE Web mail WHERE? Reply-To: cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Hi.. I just saw this thread, I have a question: all this wemail programs, where do they store the users and the user's e-mails? I needed one of this free webmail programs, all the programs I found would store the users like normal e-mail users, on /etc/passwd, and I don't want that (I don't want a /etc/passwd with 10000 entries)...
Well...but what do you want to do, Ariel? You're saying that you want a program that will actually create email users, etc.? I take it you're doing a mass "free email" program of some kind? That's what I'm picking up anyway.
Most of the free-ware or cheap-ware web email programs (including Endymion's Mailman, the one we use) do not create users. They're just a web interface for the mail server's functions so the users' info is stored wherever the server they use stores it.
They work by making a pop and smtp call to your mail program with the username and password as authentications (basis stuff really) and then they write the email you receive and/or send to the web browser screen and allow folders and forwarding, etc. They're not much more than a web site email client really.
The thing is if you don't want 10000 entries in /etc/passwd, where do you want them? Because people will need to log on and authenticate, right? If you just need to offer email to huge numbers of people, like you see in airports and those places, you CAN open up most of these programs to allow for the entry of pop and smtp configurations by the user. It's just a minor configuration change in the scripts themselves. Or you can do that with just the POP.
But that could end up being a nightmare in many ways. Or am I misunderstanding what you want to do? -- People-Link/Institute for Mass Communications 461 54th Street Brooklyn NY 11220 718 567-8463 Communications for a Better World...and for the People Who are Building One! Members, Local 1180, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO