This document explains what you, as a user, will notice when the system

switches from sendmail to qmail.

This is a global document, part of the qmail package, not reflecting the

decisions made by your system administrator. For details on

   * which local delivery agent qmail is configured to use,

   * whether qmail is configured to use dot-forward,

   * whether ezmlm is installed,

   * whether fastforward is installed, and

   * all other local configuration features,

see your local sendmail-qmail upgrade announcement (which your system

administrator may have placed into /var/qmail/doc/ANNOUNCE).

--- Mailbox location

If your system administrator has configured qmail to use binmail for

local deliveries, your mailbox will be in /var/spool/mail/you, just as

it was under sendmail.

If your system administrator has configured qmail to use qmail-local for

local deliveries, your mailbox will be moved to ~you/Mailbox. There is a

symbolic link from /var/spool/mail/you to ~you/Mailbox, so your mail

reader will find the mailbox at its new location.

--- Loop control

qmail-local automatically adds a Delivered-To field at the top of every

delivered message. It uses Delivered-To to prevent mail forwarding

loops, including cross-host mailing-list loops.

--- Outgoing messages

qmail lets you use environment variables to control the appearance of

your outgoing mail, supplementing the features offered by your MUA. For

example, qmail-inject will set up Mail-Followup-To for you automatically

if you tell it which mailing lists you are subscribed to. See

qmail-inject(8) for a complete list of features.

If you're at (say) sun.ee.movie.edu, qmail lets you type joe@mac for

joe@mac.ee.movie.edu, and joe@mac+ for joe@mac.movie.edu without the ee.

sendmail has a different interpretation of hostnames without dots.

--- Forwarding and mailing lists

qmail gives you the power to set up your own mailing lists without

pestering your system administrator.

Under qmail, you are in charge of all addresses of the form

you-anything. The delivery of you-anything is controlled by

~you/.qmail-anything, a file in your home directory.

For example, if you want to set up a bug-of-the-month-club mailing list,

you can put a list of addresses into ~you/.qmail-botmc. Any mail to

you-botmc will be forwarded to all of those addresses. Mail directly to

you is controlled by ~you/.qmail. You can even set up a catch-all,

~you/.qmail-default, to handle unknown you- addresses.

See dot-qmail(5) for the complete story. Beware that the syntax of

.qmail is different from the syntax of sendmail's .forward file.

If your system administrator has configured qmail to use the dot-forward

compatibility tool, you can put forwarding addresses (and programs) into

.forward the same way you did with sendmail.

If your system administrator has installed ezmlm, you can use ezmlm-make

to instantly set up a professional-quality mailing list, handling

subscriptions and archives automatically.

If your system administrator has installed fastforward, you can easily

manage a large database of forwarding addresses.