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--></head><body><div class="refentry"><a id="makeuserdb" shape="rect"> </a><div class="titlepage"/><div class="refnamediv"><h2>Name</h2><p>makeuserdb — create @userdb@</p></div><div class="refsynopsisdiv"><h2>Synopsis</h2><div class="cmdsynopsis"><p><code class="command">makeuserdb</code>  [-f <em class="replaceable"><code>filename</code></em>]</p></div><div class="cmdsynopsis"><p><code class="command">pw2userdb</code> </p></div><div class="cmdsynopsis"><p><code class="command">vchkpw2userdb</code>  [--vpopmailhome=<em class="replaceable"><code>dir</code></em>] [--todir=<em class="replaceable"><code>dir</code></em>]</p></div></div><div class="refsect1"><a id="makeuserdb_description" shape="rect"> </a><h2>DESCRIPTION</h2><p>
<span class="command"><strong>makeuserdb</strong></span> creates <code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code> from
the contents of <code class="filename">@userdb@</code>.
<code class="filename">@userdb@</code>'s contents are described later in this document.
<span class="application">Maildrop</span>,
<span class="application">Courier</span>, and other applications use
<code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code> as a
substitute/complement for your system password file.
The usual purpose for
<code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code> is to specify "virtual" accounts - accounts
that do
not have an associated system login.
Usually (but not necessarily) all virtual accounts share the same
system userid.
<code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code> may also replace
your system password file. Because the system password file is a text file,
when there's a large number of accounts it will be significantly faster to
search
<code class="filename">@userdb.dat@</code>, which is a binary database,
instead of a flat text file that the system password file usually is.</p><p>
The <span class="command"><strong>makeuserdb</strong></span> command can be safely executed during
normal system activity.</p><p>
The <code class="option">-f</code> option creates
<code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>filename</code></em>.dat</code> from
<code class="filename"><em class="replaceable"><code>filename</code></em></code>, instead of the
default <code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code> from
<code class="filename">@userdb@</code>.</p><div class="refsect2"><a id="makeuserdb_format_of__userdb_" shape="rect"> </a><h3>Format of <code class="filename">@userdb@</code></h3><p>
<code class="filename">@userdb@</code> is a plain text file that can be created using
any text editor. Blank lines are ignored. Lines that start with the #
character are comments, and are also ignored.
Other lines define properties of a single
"account", one line per account.
<code class="filename">@userdb@</code> may be a directory instead of a plain file.
In that case all files in <code class="filename">@userdb@</code> are essentially
concatenated, and are treated as a single file.
Each line takes the following format:</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><div class="informalexample"><div class="literallayout"><p><em class="replaceable"><code>name</code></em><span class="token">&lt;TAB&gt;</span><em class="replaceable"><code>field</code></em>=<em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em>|<em class="replaceable"><code>field</code></em>=<em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em>...</p></div></div></blockquote></div><p><em class="replaceable"><code>name</code></em> is the account name.
<em class="replaceable"><code>name</code></em> MUST contain only lowercase characters
If <span class="application">Courier</span> is
configured to treat lowercase and uppercase account names as
identical, <em class="replaceable"><code>name</code></em> is followed by exactly one tab
character, then a list of field/value pairs separated by vertical slashes.
<em class="replaceable"><code>field</code></em> is the name of the field,
<em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em> is the field value.
Fields and values themself cannot contain slashes or control characters.
Fields may be
specified in any order. Here are all the currently defined fields.  Note that
not every field is used by every application that reads
<code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code>.</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><p>
<em class="parameter"><code>uid</code></em> - <em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em> is a (possibly)
unique numerical user ID for this account.</p><p>
<em class="parameter"><code>gid</code></em> - <em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em> is a (possibly)
unique numerical group ID for this account.</p><p>
<em class="parameter"><code>home</code></em> - <em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em> is the account's home
directory.</p><p>
<em class="parameter"><code>shell</code></em> - <em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em> is the account's default
login shell.</p><p>
<em class="parameter"><code>systempw</code></em> - <em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em> is the account's
password. See
<a class="ulink" href="userdbpw.html" target="_top" shape="rect"><span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">userdbpw</span>(8)</span></a>
for details on how to set up this field.</p><p>
<em class="parameter"><code>pop3pw, esmtppw, imappw...</code></em> - <em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em>
specifies a separate password used only for authenticating access using a
specific service, such as POP3, IMAP, or anything else. If not defined,
<em class="parameter"><code>systempw</code></em> is always used. This allows access to an account to be
restricted only to certain services, such as POP3, even if other services
are also enabled on the server.</p><p>
<em class="parameter"><code>mail</code></em> - <em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em> specifies the location of
the account's Maildir mailbox. This is an optional field that is normally
used when <span class="command"><strong>userdb</strong></span> is used to provide aliases for other
mail accounts.  For example, one particular multi-domain E-mail
service configuration
that's used by both <span class="application">Qmail</span> and
<span class="application">Courier</span> servers is to deliver mail for a
mailbox in a virtual domain, such as "user@example.com", to a local mailbox
called "example-user".  Instead of requiring the E-mail account
holder to log in as
"example-user" to download mail from this account, a <span class="command"><strong>userdb</strong></span>
entry for "user@example.com" is set up with <em class="parameter"><code>mail</code></em> set to the
location of example-user's Maildir mailbox, thus hiding the internal
mail configuration from the E-mail account holder's view.</p><p>
<em class="parameter"><code>quota</code></em> - <em class="replaceable"><code>value</code></em> specifies the
maildir quota for the account's Maildir.
This has nothing to do with actual filesystem quotas.
<span class="application">Courier</span> has a
software-based Maildir quota enforcement
mechanism which requires additional setup and configuration.
See
<a class="ulink" href="maildirquota.html" target="_top" shape="rect"><span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">maildirquota</span>(7)</span></a>
for additional information.</p></blockquote></div></div><div class="refsect2"><a id="makeuserdb__userdb_shadow_dat" shape="rect"> </a><h3><code class="filename">@userdb@shadow.dat</code></h3><p>
All fields whose name ends with 'pw' will NOT copied to
<code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code>. These fields will be copied to
<code class="filename">@userdb@shadow.dat</code>.
<span class="command"><strong>makeuserdb</strong></span> creates <code class="filename">@userdb@shadow.dat</code>
without any group and world permissions.
Note that <span class="command"><strong>makeuserdb</strong></span> reports an error
if <span class="command"><strong>@userdb@</strong></span> has any group
or world permissions.</p></div><div class="refsect2"><a id="makeuserdb_converting__etc_passwd_and_vpopmail_to__userdb__format" shape="rect"> </a><h3>CONVERTING <code class="filename">/etc/passwd</code> and vpopmail to <code class="filename">@userdb@</code> format</h3><p>
<span class="command"><strong>pw2userdb</strong></span> reads the <code class="filename">/etc/passwd</code> and
<code class="filename">/etc/shadow</code> files and converts all entries to the
<code class="filename">@userdb@</code> format,
printing the result on standard output.
The output of <span class="command"><strong>pw2userdb</strong></span>
can be saved as <span class="command"><strong>@userdb@</strong></span> (or as some file in this
subdirectory).
Linear searches of <code class="filename">/etc/passwd</code> can
be very slow when you have
tens of thousands of accounts.
Programs like <span class="command"><strong>maildrop</strong></span> always look in
<code class="filename">@userdb@</code> first.
By saving the system password file in
<code class="filename">@userdb@</code> it is possible to significantly reduce the
amount of
time it takes to look up this information.</p><p>
After saving the output of <span class="command"><strong>pw2userdb</strong></span>, you must still run
<span class="command"><strong>makeuserdb</strong></span> to create
<code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code>.</p><p>
<span class="command"><strong>vchkpw2userdb</strong></span> converts a vpopmail-style
directory hierarchy to the <code class="filename">@userdb@</code> format.
This is an external virtual domain management package that's often used
with <span class="application">Qmail</span> servers.</p><p>
Generally, an account named 'vpopmail' is reserved for this purpose.
In
that account the file <code class="filename">users/vpasswd</code> has the same
layout as
<code class="filename">/etc/passwd</code>, and performs a similar function, except
that all userid in <code class="filename">users/vpasswd</code> have the same userid.
Additionally, the
<code class="filename">domains</code> subdirectory stores virtual accounts for
multiple domains.  For example,
<code class="filename">domains/example.com/vpasswd</code>
has the passwd file for the domain <em class="parameter"><code>example.com</code></em>.
Some systems also have a soft link, <em class="parameter"><code>domains/default</code></em>,
that points to a domain that's considered a "default" domain.</p><p>
The <span class="command"><strong>vchkpw2userdb</strong></span> reads all this information, and tries to
convert it into the <code class="filename">@userdb@</code> format.  The
<em class="parameter"><code>--vpopmailhost</code></em> option specifies the top level
directory, if it is
not the home directory of the vpopmail account.</p><p>
The <span class="command"><strong>vchkpw2userdb</strong></span> script prints the results on standard
output. If specified, the <em class="parameter"><code>--todir</code></em> option
tries to convert all
<code class="filename">vpasswd</code> files one at a time, saving each one
individually in <em class="replaceable"><code>dir</code></em>. For example:</p><div class="blockquote"><blockquote class="blockquote"><div class="informalexample"><div class="literallayout"><p><br clear="none"/>
mkdir @userdb@<br clear="none"/>
vchkpw2userdb --todir=@userdb@/vpopmail<br clear="none"/>
makeuserdb<br clear="none"/>
</p></div></div></blockquote></div><p>
It is still necessary to run <span class="command"><strong>makeuserdb</strong></span>, of course, to
create the binary database file <code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code></p><p>
NOTE:  You are still required to create the <span class="command"><strong>@userdb@</strong></span> entry
which maps
system userids back to accounts,
"<em class="replaceable"><code>uid</code></em>=<span class="token">&lt;TAB&gt;</span><em class="replaceable"><code>name</code></em>",
if that's applicable. <span class="command"><strong>vchkpw2userdb</strong></span> will not do it for
you.</p><p>
NOTE:  <span class="command"><strong>makeuserdb</strong></span> may complain about duplicate entries, if
your "default" entries in <code class="filename">users/vpasswd</code> or
<code class="filename">domains/default/vpasswd</code> are the same as anything in any
other <code class="filename">@userdb@</code> file.  It is also likely that you'll end
up with duplicate, but distinct, entries for every account in the default
domain.  For
example, if your default domain is example.com, you'll end up with duplicate
entries - you'll have entries for both <em class="parameter"><code>user</code></em> and
<em class="parameter"><code>user@example.com</code></em>.</p><p>If you intend to maintain the master set of accounts using
vchkpw/vpopmail,
in order to avoid cleaning this up every time, you might want to consider
doing the following: run <span class="command"><strong>vchkpw2userdb</strong></span> once, using the
<em class="parameter"><code>--todir</code></em> option.
Then, go into the resulting directory, and
replace one of the redundant files with a soft link to
<code class="filename">/dev/null</code>.
This allows you to run
<span class="command"><strong>vchkpw2userdb</strong></span> without having to go in and
cleaning up again, afterwards.</p></div></div><div class="refsect1"><a id="makeuserdb_files" shape="rect"> </a><h2>FILES</h2><div class="literallayout"><p><br clear="none"/>
<code class="filename">@userdb@</code><br clear="none"/>
<code class="filename">@userdb@.dat</code><br clear="none"/>
<code class="filename">@userdb@shadow.dat</code><br clear="none"/>
<code class="filename">@tmpdir@/userdb.tmp</code> - temporary file<br clear="none"/>
<code class="filename">@tmpdir@/userdbshadow.tmp</code> - temporary file<br clear="none"/>
</p></div></div><div class="refsect1"><a id="makeuserdb_bugs" shape="rect"> </a><h2>BUGS</h2><p><span class="command"><strong>makeuserdb</strong></span> is a Perl script, and uses Perl's portable
locking.
Perl's documentation notes that certain combinations of locking options may
not work with some networks.</p></div><div class="refsect1"><a id="makeuserdb_see_also" shape="rect"> </a><h2>SEE ALSO</h2><p>
<a class="ulink" href="userdb.html" target="_top" shape="rect"><span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">userdb</span>(8)</span></a>,
<a class="ulink" href="maildrop.html" target="_top" shape="rect"><span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">maildrop</span>(8)</span></a>,
<a class="ulink" href="courier.html" target="_top" shape="rect"><span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">courier</span>(8)</span></a>,
<a class="ulink" href="maildirquota.html" target="_top" shape="rect"><span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">maildirquota</span>(7)</span></a>.
</p></div></div></body></html>
