Pkg exim4 users - Sep 2010 - dc_localdelivery='maildir_home' has no effect?

Hello

I ran dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config to set up exim4 for local delivery
only (msmtp takes care for the rest). In
/etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf, I have:

dc_localdelivery=''maildir_home''

However, when I send an email as root to root (for testing), it goes
to /var/mail/mail, not to /root/Maildir. I do not understand why. Any
clue?

Thanks
Thomas

thomas <thomas.bsd at gmail.com> wrote:
> I ran dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config to set up exim4 for local delivery
> only (msmtp takes care for the rest). In
> /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf, I have:
> dc_localdelivery=''maildir_home''
> However, when I send an email as root to root (for testing), it goes
> to /var/mail/mail, not to /root/Maildir. I do not understand why. Any
> clue?
root is a particulry bad testcase if you did not redcirect it with /etc/aliases.

/usr/share/doc/exim4-config/README.Debian.gz
4.3. No deliveries to root!

   No Exim 4 version released with any Debian OS can run deliveries as
   root. If you don''t redirect mail for root via /etc/aliases to a
   nonprivileged account, the mail will be delivered to /var/mail/mail
   with permissions 0600 and owner mail:mail.

   This redirection is done by the mail4root router which is last in the
   list and will thus catch mail for root that has not been taken care of
   earlier.

cu andreas

2010/9/1 Andreas Metzler <ametzler at
downhill.at.eu.org>:
> thomas <thomas.bsd at gmail.com> wrote:
>> However, when I send an email as root to root (for testing), it goes
>> to /var/mail/mail, not to /root/Maildir. I do not understand why. Any
>> clue?
>
> root is a particulry bad testcase if you did not redcirect it with
/etc/aliases.
>
> /usr/share/doc/exim4-config/README.Debian.gz
> 4.3. No deliveries to root!
Thanks Andreas. I had "root: " with no redirection in /etc/aliases.
But changing this line to "root: jdoe" did not solve the problem. Now
mail to root (and to jdoe) go to /var/mail/jdoe, not to
/home/jdoe/Maildir. Is it normal? Did I miss something?

Thomas

thomas <thomas.bsd at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2010/9/1 Andreas Metzler <ametzler at downhill.at.eu.org>:
>> thomas <thomas.bsd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> However, when I send an email as root to root (for testing), it
>>> goes to /var/mail/mail, not to /root/Maildir. I do not understand
>>> why. Any clue?
>> root is a particulry bad testcase if you did not redcirect it with
>> /etc/aliases.
>> /usr/share/doc/exim4-config/README.Debian.gz
>> 4.3. No deliveries to root!
> Thanks Andreas. I had "root: " with no redirection in
/etc/aliases.
> But changing this line to "root: jdoe" did not solve the problem.
Now
> mail to root (and to jdoe) go to /var/mail/jdoe, not to
> /home/jdoe/Maildir. Is it normal? Did I miss something?
What does
/usr/sbin/exim4 -bt jdoe
say?

cu andreas

2010/9/2 Andreas Metzler <ametzler at
downhill.at.eu.org>:
>> Thanks Andreas. I had "root: " with no redirection in
/etc/aliases.
>> But changing this line to "root: jdoe" did not solve the
problem. Now
>> mail to root (and to jdoe) go to /var/mail/jdoe, not to
>> /home/jdoe/Maildir. Is it normal? Did I miss something?
>
> What does
> /usr/sbin/exim4 -bt jdoe
> say?
R: system_aliases for jdoe at localbox.somewhere.tld
R: userforward for jdoe at localbox.somewhere.tld
R: procmail for jdoe at localbox.somewhere.tld
jdoe at localbox.somewhere.tld
 router = procmail, transport = procmail_pipe

Thanks for putting me on the right track. I forgot that exim was
calling procmail. John Doe''s ~/.procmailrc had only the following
lines:

MAILDIR=/home/jdoe/mail/mailboxes

:0:
$1/

... The $1 arg is given by /home/jdoe/.fetchmailrc:
For instance:
# Put mail in /home/jdoe/mail/mailboxes/amailbox
mda ''/usr/bin/procmail -a amailbox

I added a filter in /home/jdoe/.procmailrc:
:0:
* ^To:.*localbox.somewhere.tld$
local/new

This puts the local mail in /home/jdoe/mail/mailboxes/local, which
solves my problem.

There is just one thing I do not understand. For the non-local mail, I
simply indicate "mailboxname" and procmail is clever enough to catch
that it is a maildir mailbox and it puts mail in "mailboxname/new".
But for local mail, I have to tell procmail to put mail in
"mailboxname/new". Not a big thing, but I do not see the logic in
this.

Jedenfalls vielen Dank
Thomas

thomas <thomas.bsd at gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
>>> mail to root (and to jdoe) go to /var/mail/jdoe, not to
>>> /home/jdoe/Maildir. Is it normal? Did I miss something?
[...]
> John Doe''s ~/.procmailrc had only the following
> lines:
> MAILDIR=/home/jdoe/mail/mailboxes
> :0:
> $1/
> ... The $1 arg is given by /home/jdoe/.fetchmailrc:
> For instance:
> # Put mail in /home/jdoe/mail/mailboxes/amailbox
> mda ''/usr/bin/procmail -a amailbox
[...]

My procmail days are a thing of the past, but perhaps I can be of
assistance. If exim invokes procmail there is no -a option and $1 is
unset and procmail ends up with "/" as desitination. It does not seem
to regard that as a vaild destination and falls back to delivery to
DEFAULT (which is /var/mail/$LOGNAME. Setting
DEFAULT=local/
might fix your problem.

cu andreas