[FQuest Announce] New Tools for Modifying Email Aliases

[Bruce]

When: Available Now!
What: Command Line Tool for Email Alias Modification
Who: All Site Owners Comfortable with Command Line

There have been a number of requests over time for the ability to by-pass the CNC when working with email forwarding aliases. For example:
http://www.aota.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23350
http://www.aota.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23479

We are therefore very pleased to announce the availability of a set of tools to enable Site Owners to manipulate forwarding aliases from the shell command line.

It is now possible to create new forwarding aliases, change or remove the forwarding address(es), and to remove the alias completely.

To use these new tools, establish a Telnet or SSH session and then at the command line issue the commands as follows:

1. vaddalias ACCOUNT [ADDRESS ...]

vaddalias creates a new alias named "ACCOUNT" that forwards to the named ADDRESSes. If no addresses are specified on the command line, a black hole address is created.

2. vchalias ACCOUNT [ADDRESS ...]

vchalias modifies an existing alias named "ACCOUNT" similar to vaddalias above.

3. vdelalias ACCOUNT

vdelalias deletes the named forwarding alias named "ACCOUNT".

In all cases, if the forwarding alias manipulation succeeds, the commands return a zero exit code; otherwise they output a brief error and return a non-zero exit code.

These programs are already installed and available to all site owners. No additional setup is required to start using the programs. You may begin using them immediately!

[frankc]

Now THAT'S a Christmas present--thanks!

Originally Posted by Bruce

1. vaddalias ACCOUNT [ADDRESS ...]

vaddalias creates a new alias named "ACCOUNT" that forwards to the named ADDRESSes. If no addresses are specified on the command line, a black hole address is created.

Are addresses on separate lines or separated by commas/colons/semicolons? I have ::hundreds::.

Originally Posted by Bruce

2. vchalias ACCOUNT [ADDRESS ...]

vchalias modifies an existing alias named "ACCOUNT" similar to vaddalias above.

I assume you have to relist the entire list?

Not to be greedy, but being able to point to a simple alias.txt file of aliases and then just mod that file would be handy. But I'm thankful for this, regardless!

[Bruce]

Originally Posted by frankc

Are addresses on separate lines or separated by commas/colons/semicolons?

All the addresses are specified on the command line as separate parameters. Quoting the email addresses is encouraged to prevent the shell from interpreting control characters.

I assume you have to relist the entire list?

Yes. The vchalias command replaces the current forwarding address list with the specified list.

Not to be greedy, but being able to point to a simple alias.txt file of aliases and then just mod that file would be handy.

The forwarding lists are set up and used on the POP toasters. The community servers on which the proposed aliases list files reside are not contacted when forwarding decisions are made. As such maintaining the list on the community server would not be possible.

[hobbes]

Thanks, a useful feature.

The forwarding lists are set up and used on the POP toasters. The community servers on which the proposed aliases list files reside are not contacted when forwarding decisions are made. As such maintaining the list on the community server would not be possible.

Having the input parsed from a text file may be useful.

Frank - an interim option would be to store the whole command in a shell (text) file, and/or use a script to process the text file of aliases and call the command.


-- now, how about cmd-line control of POP mailboxes? yeah, yeah, I won't hold my breath... --

[frankc]

Originally Posted by Bruce

All the addresses are specified on the command line as separate parameters. Quoting the email addresses is encouraged to prevent the shell from interpreting control characters.

So the statement(s) would be

vaddalias new_alias1 valid_account_or_new_alias
vaddalias new_alias2 valid_account_or_new_alias
etc

and if I have hundreds of existing aliases, each is a separate command line statement?

[frankc]

Originally Posted by hobbes

Frank - an interim option would be to store the whole command in a shell (text) file, and/or use a script to process the text file of aliases and call the command.

That sounds really handy, but it's beyond my skills at the mo'.

[hobbes]

Here is a simple way of doing it:

Create a plain text file with the commands you want (per your 2nd post up). Upload the file to the server (outside the web directory). Login to your account using ssh, and "execute" the file with

sh FILE_NAME

Replace FILE_NAME with the file name. If you get vaddalias not found, you may need to use the full path: /usr/bin/vaddalias .

[Bruce]

Originally Posted by frankc

vaddalias new_alias1 valid_account_or_new_alias
vaddalias new_alias2 valid_account_or_new_alias

I think so, though I am unclear what you mean by "new_alias" above. Some examples would be:

vaddalias new_alias1 existing_mailbox
vaddalias new_alias2 existing_mailbox mailbox@another.domain.com

and if I have hundreds of existing aliases, each is a separate command line statement?

The new tools are not dependent on how many aliases already exist. That is, if you want to create or modify one forwarding alias, you need to issue a single command. You would need to issue one command for each one you want to create or modify, though.

[frankc]

Back in the days of yore when I set up my first account on FQ, the catchall was touted as a neat feature because you could create email aliases on the fly that'd all resolve to the catchall. "Things changed" and now I've maybe 500+ of the buggers, popsci.com@mydomain, cnet.com@mydomain, etc.

Originally Posted by Bruce

I think so, though I am unclear what you mean by "new_alias" above. Some examples would be:[code]vaddalias new_alias1 existing_mailbox

....You would need to issue one command for each one you want to create or modify, though.

I just wanted to be sure I know how to do the one statement literally hundreds of times but with a different alias I'd created for each line. My goal was to find a quick way to do that.

Thanks, hobbes--that'll help a lot! Cut and paste is our friend, eh?

[DogAndPony]

Cool beans!

Some questions:

Is there a command to list all aliases for an account?

And/or a command to list the aliases and their destination addresses?

Same for alias stacks...?

Is there an AOTA page where I can find the other mail account-related commands? Couldn't find it in the Knowledge Base.

I don't provide CNC access to my clients, so it'd be great to be able to create an interface for them to futz with aliases themselves, along with POPpass.

Thanks!