do I need to add them to the home directory?

bscott at ntisys.com bscott at ntisys.com
Mon Sep 15 18:19:13 EDT 2003


On Mon, 15 Sep 2003, at 1:34pm, jason at kernbuilt.com wrote:
> Using Sendmail on linux 7.1. While adding several new email account 
> users, do I need to add a directory in /home for each user?

  Technically, no.

  But, technically, "Linux 7.1" does not exist, and technically, Sendmail is
only used to deliver mail to local Unix mailboxes, so I think your question
could use more examination.  :-)

  If your intent is to run a "mail spool server", such that the only reason
user accounts exist is to let users retrieve mail from their inbox, then
users do not need home directories (although some software might still warn
you about the missing directories).  For example, an ISP mail server that
only serves up mailboxes via POP3 could work this way.  So would an NFS
server that shares a /var/spool/mail directory (although that's generally a
bad idea for other reasons).

  If you intend to provide access to *other* resources -- such as web-based
mail programs, IMAP, or anything else that goes beyond the concept of a
simple inbox -- then you will almost certainly need a home directory for
each user.

  I suspect the overhead of creating a home directory for each user would be
insignificant compared to the demands of your average user's inbox, for all
but large ISPs using dedicated mail spool servers.  But I've learned that
the demands of email can vary greatly depending on the environment, so maybe
your case is different.

> Also, if they are using only the email service, should they all be members
> of the same group?

  Does not apply.  If a resource is controlled by group membership, and the
user should have access to that resource, they should be a member of that
group.  If they do not need access to said resource(s), they should not be
in that group.  Whether or not different users are in the same group does
not matter.

  In the case of a mail server, unless you have placed unusual permissions
on the /var/spool/mail/ directory path, users really don't need to be in any
particular group at all.  Unix does require that every user be a member of
at least one group, the "primary group" of that user, but you can choose
anything you want for this scenario.

  I like to configure regular users with primary group "users".  I
completely eschew Red Hat's "user private groups" scheme.  I add secondary
groups (e.g., "accounting", "sales") as needed.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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