[Pkg-exim4-users] Catch all mailbox

[Andreas Metzler]

On 2005-04-11 Martin Fraser <martin@burbank.co.uk> wrote:
[...]
> I put exim in debug mode and found that the lsearch* was working, for 
> any of my three domains, all from the same aliases file, which is 
> exactly what I wanted and exactly what I thought would happen by looking 
> at the routers config.

> The problem was the fact that it was matching my random address to the 
> catchall *: postmaster
[...]
> The router that actually finds user accounts, 
> local_user, was almost the last router and as such the wildcard in the 
> aliases files matched before I could check for real user names. Renaming 
> the router to start with a smaller number than the aliases router meant 
> that when an alias resolved to a real user name it was found by the 
> local_user router and delivered successfully. The local_user router 
> appears to my untrained eye to match any username that is not root, 
> which is perfect.
[...]

It is not perfect, as you loose the possibily to redirect mail of
_existing_ users via /etc/aliases. (e.g. I do not want news to be
delivered to /var/mail/news but to the newsmaster). You should use a
separate router for the catchall, ending up with this:

1. /etc/aliases
2. existing users
[perhaps more routers]
3. catchall.

> So, assuming my rambling above makes any sense, I have two questions.

> Firstly, what does the real_user router do. To me it makes no sense at 
> all and I hope it is for a feature that I don't use here at home as one 
> of two email accounts.

real-user is a special shortcut to _force_ local delivery, e.g. even
for a machine that sends everything to mailup you might want deliver
mail-error messages to some _local_ user.
[snip, second question answered above]

      hth, cu andreas
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