aliases of various types

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Thu, 01 Jul 2010, Gavin McCullagh wrote:

> Previously (on a kolab v1), we tended to use /etc/aliases fairly heavily.
> This was probably not ideal, but it allowed us to do lots of useful things
> like:
> 
> 1. where <user> left the organisation, forward their mail to <newuser>
> 	<user>: <newuser>
> 2. create simple distribution lists:
> 	<listname>: <localuser1>, <localuser2>, <remoteuser1>, ....
> 3. create simple name aliases:
> 	<nickname>: <realname>
> 	<nickname>: <remote_realname>
> 4. Copy all email to <user1> to <user2> and possibly <remoteuser1>
> 	<user1>: <user1>, <user2>, <remoteuser1>

I'm going to add in what I have been able to find out so far.

The available tools (if you don't wish to manually edit config files)
seem to be:

 - sieve rules (not ideal as you have to login as a user to easily admin
   them)
 - distribution lists
 - user aliases
 - shared mail folders
 - address book (to allow adding external accounts in distribution lists)


The best solution I can find to [1] is either of:
 - set the account password, login to the account and set a forward
 - share the account's folders with the replacement user.
 - delete the account and set it up as an alias or distribution list for
   other user(s)

You can achieve [2] for local users easily using distribution lists.  For
remote users you have to add them first to the addressbook.  That's a bit
messy, but it's doable.

It seems that [3] can be solved using user aliases as long as the
<realname> is a local email account.  So if someone wants a nickname email,
I can simply add the nickname to their normal account.  However, where a
local account doesn't exist, I can't give them an alias which forwards,
say, to their external gmail account.  I also can't give two people the
same alias -- actually the kolab admin interface allows you to, but it
shouldn't.

To give other users a forwarding address on our mail system [3b], you can
add the <remote_address> to the address book and then add it to a
one-address distribution list.  This is pretty messy.  You don't appear to
be able to add a alias to the addressbook entry and expect that to cause
the email to go out (that would be a nice feature though?).  Does anyone
know of a better way to do this?

[4] can be done with sieve, but that's not ideal for someone managing the
system.  I can't see another way just now.


Does anyone have any corrections/additions to this?

Gavin