[plug] Mail without /etc/passwd

[Leon Brooks]

On Sun, 28 Jul 2002 20:32, Michael Hunt wrote:
> Take a look at Cyrus IMAP. It will do POP3 as well as IMAP. I did once
> setup cyrus to authenticate against a mysql database but I have forgotten
> the steps to that now.

Actually, you can do just about anything with most modern mail servers. E.g. 
postfix will get some or all tables out of an SQL database if so directed, or 
LDAP, NIS, etc... and of course each of those has bolt-ons galore. You can 
store your user data in your DNS if the mood takes you (ie if the lithium 
tablets stop working).

There's a few tidbits in the PostFix FAQ (http://www.postfix.org/faq.html) and 
scattered around the web. Try googling for "postfix authenticate sql", you'll 
find HOWTOs for making Cyrus imapd and all of the pieces authenticate through 
SQL and sing in harmony.

You can even do that with local users (-: brave boy! :-) using pam_mysql and 
similar adapters.

Cheers; Leon