VPS1 Sendmail Differences


Although sendmail works mostly the same on VPS1 as it does in the rest of the world, it isn't quite the same. Hopefully the differences mentioned here will alleviate confusion and help avoid embarrassment.

virtmaps

Have you ever posted to the comp.mail.sendmail newsgroup and mentioned virtmaps? No one will know what you are talking about! To the rest of the sendmail world, virtmap is called virtusertable (virtual user table). If you refer to them (it) as virtusertable, the sendmail gurus will know what you are talking about. (BTW, on VPS2, the virtual user table is called virtusertable.)

Wildcard virtmaps

On VPS1, a wildcard virtmap looks something like:

somedomain.com    joeuser

In sendmail generally (outside the VPS1), the same wildcard virtusertable entry looks like:

@somedomain.com    joeuser

Note that the left-hand side is prefixed with "@". (In fact, outside the VPS1, all virtusertable entries have an "@" somewhere on the left-hand side.)

If you use the VPS1's vinstall sendmail to install some sample macro configuration (mc) files and use the resulting sendmail.cf files (generated from mc files), then you can prefix an "@" sign at the beginning of a wildcard virtmap entry. (You can also omit the "@"--on VPS1 only.)

Editing the sendmail.cf

If you mention on comp.mail.sendmail that you edit the sendmail.cf file directly, someone will post an immediate reply, "Never edit your sendmail.cf directly! Instead, build it from an mc file.)

On VPS1, if you use the "short" sendmail.cf file that comes with newly provisioned accounts, about the only want to change the file is to edit it directly. However, if you plan on serious changes, you really ought to vinstall sendmail, change to ~/usr/local/sendmail/cf/cf, and use one of the sample macro configuration files as a basis for a more fully featured sendmail.cf.

(See How to Customize the sendmail.cf File on a VPS1 for tips on getting started with a macro configuration file.)

vnewaliases

Elsewhere, use newaliases to regenerate the aliases.db

vnewvirtmaps

The non-VPS1 world has no virtmaps. (They have a virtusertable instead.) On other platforms, you can generate the virtusertable.db as follows:

# cd /etc/mail
# makemap hash virtusertable < virtusertable

(Depending on the platform, you might use "btree" instead of "hash" in the above command.)

 vnewspammers

The spammers database is a VPS1-only database. The closest feature to the spammers database is the access database. (If you vinstall sendmail, the macro configuration files in ~/usr/local/sendmail/cf/cf support not only the spammers database, but also the access database.)