Re: [Evolution] Evolution not recognizing /etc/aliases file

[Mark Neill <mark thisismyown com>]

On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Sam Hart wrote:

> On 2 Aug 2002, Dan Winship wrote:
>
> > > Evolution version 1.0.3 (came with RH 7.2, I think) does not seem to 
> > > ackowledge the sendmail /etc/aliases file. I have access to 1.0.5 at my 
> > > house, but I have not verified if the problem exists there as well.
> >
> > Yes, evolution does not read your /etc/aliases, just like it doesn't
> > read your inetd.conf or XF86config. I'm not sure what you're expecting
> > it to do...?
>
> It's the first Unix mailer I've encountered that doesn't support 
> /etc/aliases. The aliases file is a standard file used by things like 
> sendmail and the like.
>
> Traditionally, you use the aliases file to store aliases for e-mail 
> addresses. When you use a mail composer and enter one of the aliases from 
> that file, either the composer looks in that file and completes the 
> address, or it allows the alias to remain and tries to send the mail 
> anyway (it allows the MTA decide if the alias is valid or not)
> Under evo it just chokes saying that the address is invalid.

As it should.  /etc/aliases is NOT for MUA (Mail User Agent) use, it's for 
MTA (Mail Transport Agent) use.  No mailer should use /etc/aliases, as 
it can be used to take advantage of MTA abilities and do things like spawn 
pipes and outside executables to transfer the mail into.  Bad things would 
happen if you were to specify a local address that expanded into a pipe or 
an executable.



> > If you just need to be able to send mail to aliases defined there, then
> > configure your account to use sendmail rather than SMTP to send mail,
> > and it will just work.
>
> It is configured to use sendmail.

Because Sendmail is an MTA, and Evolution is an MUA.  They do two 
different things.  It could be configured to use qmail or exim or whatever 
else you wanted to specify as an _MTA_.  The problem you present is that 
Evolution isn't showing you the work that Sendmail will do when it 
encounters a local address.  And it shouldn't...it's Evolution, not 
Sendmail.


> > If you want to make the composer autocomplete addresses out of
> > /etc/aliases, then no, there's no way to make it do that currently. It
> > would be possible to write a backend that would do that though.
>
> It doesn't have to autocomplete addresses as long as it still lets you 
> send mail without having a complete address.
 
This was answered the other day.  Evo accepts RFC822-compliant addresses.  
Local addresses are NOT RFC-compliant, unless they are expanded.



You're confusing the abilities of MTA's and MUA's.

MUA's, like Evo, are designed to talk to mail stores, like POP and IMAP 
accounts,a nd local mail folders, and access them.  They also compose mail 
for handing off to whatever the specified MTA is.

MTA's should actually process the message, determine if anything needs 
done with rewriting of the envelope, short-circuit local delivery 
addresses, and deliver outbound mail to a remote MTA, where it will handle 
local delivery.