qmail-getpw - give addresses to users

SYNOPSIS

       qmail-getpw local

DESCRIPTION

       In  qmail,  each  user  controls  a  vast  array  of local
       addresses.  qmail-getpw finds the  user  that  controls  a
       particular address, local.  It prints six pieces of infor-
       mation, each terminated by NUL: user; uid;  gid;  homedir;
       dash;  and  ext.   The  user's  account  name is user; the
       user's uid and gid in decimal are uid and gid; the  user's
       home  directory  is homedir; and messages to local will be
       handled by homedir/.qmaildashext.

       In case of  trouble,  qmail-getpw  exits  nonzero  without
       printing anything.

       WARNING:  The  operating system's getpwnam function, which
       is at the heart of qmail-getpw, is inherently  unreliable.

RULES

       qmail-getpw  considers  an  account in /etc/passwd to be a
       user if (1)  the  account  has  a  nonzero  uid,  (2)  the
       account's  home directory exists, and (3) the account owns
       its home directory.   qmail-getpw  ignores  account  names
       containing uppercase letters or - characters.

       qmail-getpw  gives  each  user control over the basic user
       address and all addresses of the form user-anything.  When
       local is user, dash and ext are both empty.  When local is
       user-anything, dash is a hyphen and ext is anything.  user
       may  appear  in any combination of uppercase and lowercase
       letters at the front of local.

       A catch-all user, alias, controls all other addresses.  In
       this case ext is local and dash is a hyphen.

       You  can  override all of qmail-getpw's decisions with the
       qmail-users mechanism, which is reliable,  highly  config-
       urable, and much faster than qmail-getpw.

SEE ALSO

       qmail-users(5), qmail-lspawn(8)