Quoth Gareth Otte on Thu, Jan 18, 2001:
> Where does the shadow password file reside and how do you combine it with
> your 'normal' passord file.
This mailing list is about EXIM MTA. Get it? Vi editor is not a
part of Exim. Shadow password file is not a part of Exim either.
Nor is user management (such as suspending accounts).
To make your life simpler, I prepared a short document entitled
_Exim -- What It Is_. It's available in text, more(1),
PostScript and PDF formats from:
http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~vadik/whateximis/
I reproduced the text version below. Please notice that this
document is a work in progress, so if any of the information in
this document is incomplete or incorrect, I beg everybody's
forgiveness.
=================================================================
Exim -- What It Is
Vadim Vygonets
BOFH Consulting
ABSTRACT
This document was prepared by Vadik for Mr.
Gareth Otte who often asks questions not related
to Exim on the exim-users mailing list. The
author sincerely hopes that this document will
prove to be useful to Mr. Otte.
This document is Copyright (C) 1901, Vadim
Vygonets. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Exim is a Mail Transport Agent (MTA). An MTA is a pro-
gram created to deliver electronic mail (e-mail) from one
point on the network (hereafter Point A) to another (here-
after Point B). Electronic mail delivery is not a trivial
task, hence Exim is not a single binary, but several dozens
of files. This document attempts to list most of the parts
of Exim, and give examples of programs, files and concepts
which are not.
2. Files That Are Part Of Exim
2.1. Binaries
Exim consists of several binary files. Here are the
names of the binaries:
+ exicyclog
+ exigrep
+ exim
+ exim dbmbuild
+ exim dumpdb
+ exim fixdb
+ exim lock
+ exim tidydb
+ eximon
+ eximon.bin
+ eximstats
+ exinext
+ exiqsumm
+ exiwhat
There also may be several binaries with names ending
with ".O". Don't pay attention to them, they're leftovers
from older versions of Exim.
2.2. Configuration Files
Exim has only one principal configuration file. It is
usually called configure or exim.conf, depending on your
installation. Please note that if a file called configure
is starting with #!/bin/sh, it's not a part of Exim (though
this may change in Exim 4).
2.3. Databases
Exim may use several database files, whose names may or
may not end with .db, .dir or .pag. You can easily check
whether the said files are used by Exim or not by looking in
the Exim configuration file. If the names of the files are
mentioned therein (possibly with the suffix stripped off),
they probably are. Otherwise, they are not. A typical
database is /etc/aliases.
2.4. Internal Databases
Those are the files located in the Exim DB directory
(typically a subdirectory called db in the Exim spool direc-
tory). They have names like retry.db and wait-
remote smtp.db. Don't bother about them.
2.5. Mail Queue
The mail queue consists of files in the input subdirec-
tory of the Exim spool directory. There are two files for
every e-mail message, with names such as 14JOZN-0005uq-00-D
and 14JOZN-0005uq-00-H.
2.6. Message Log
Also known as msglog. Located in the msglog subdirec-
tory of the Exim spool directory.
2.7. Log Files
Files with names such as mainlog, rejectlog and pani-
clog, and older logs that have exactly the same names but
ending with a dot and a number, and optionally with a suffix
such as .Z or .gz.
3. Examples Of Files That Are Not Part Of Exim
+ /usr/bin/vi
+ /etc/passwd
+ /etc/shadow
=================================================================
Vadik.
--
Of course [nobody reads the docs that come with the OS] -- that
would be too easy and too quick. People know that the Unix Way
is difficult and they prefer to keep it that way.
-- Greg Black
