set up email addresses that aren't attached to a user

Question

I need to set up a lot of email addresses on a Linux machine, but I don't want to create a new user account for each one.

The mail can stored in a regular maildir or mbox. (I'll be checking the mail through some Perl code running on a cronjob.)

How do I do this?

Answer 1

You can use virtual users (and domains) stored on a database so you don't need to create linux users to the mailboxes and the admin of the mail users and domain is very simple, just adding or removing a record in the database table.

an example for ubuntu, postfix and mysql

Answer 2

The full answer really depends on what mail server program you are using.

For both the postfix and sendmail you can redirect mail addresses to local accounts using the /etc/aliases file: any line of the form address: unix-account will deliver email addressed to address@your.domain to the mailbox of unix-account. For example, if /etc/aliases contains a line like this:

postmaster: root

then UNIX user root will get all the mail addressed to postmaster@your.domain, without any need for postmaster to exist as a regular UNIX account.

Instead of a UNIX account name, you can specify the full path of a file -- mail will be delivered to that file (in mbox format). Other redirections are also possible; see man aliases for details.

Note: after editing /etc/aliases, you have to run the command newaliases (as root, typically) in order to have the mail server pick up the new addresses.