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5 | <title>README</title> |
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10 | <h1>Courier Authentication Library</h1> |
11 | |
12 | <p>This is the Courier authentication library. Copies of this library code |
13 | used to exist in other tarballs: Courier, Courier-IMAP, and SqWebMail. |
14 | Building and installing any of these packages would've automatically |
15 | installed this authentication code.</p> |
16 | |
17 | <p>The authentication library is now a separate, standalone package. This |
18 | authentication library must now be installed, separately, before upgrading to |
19 | the following builds (or if installing them for the first time): Courier |
20 | 0.48, Courier-IMAP 4.0, and SqWebMail 5.0. See <a href="NEWS.html">NEWS</a> |
21 | for more information.</p> |
22 | |
23 | <p>Download: <a target="_blank" |
24 | href="http://www.courier-mta.org/download.php#authlib">http://www.courier-mta.org/download.php#authlib</a></p> |
25 | |
26 | <h2>Overview</h2> |
27 | |
28 | <p>The Courier authentication library provides authentication services for |
29 | other Courier applications. In this context, the term "authentication" refers |
30 | to the following functions:</p> |
31 | <ol> |
32 | <li>Take a userid or a loginid, and a password. Determine whether the |
33 | loginid and the password are valid.</li> |
34 | <li>Given a userid, obtain the following information about the userid: |
35 | <ol type="A"> |
36 | <li>The account's home directory.</li> |
37 | <li>The numeric system userid and groupid that owns all files |
38 | associated with this account.</li> |
39 | <li>The location of the account's maildir.</li> |
40 | <li>Any maildir quota defined for this account. See the Courier |
41 | documentation for more information on maildir quotas.</li> |
42 | <li>Other miscellaneous account-specific options.</li> |
43 | </ol> |
44 | </li> |
45 | <li>Change the password associated with a loginid.</li> |
46 | <li>Obtain a complete list of all loginids.</li> |
47 | </ol> |
48 | |
49 | <p>The Courier authentication library provides alternative implementations of |
50 | these authentication services:</p> |
51 | <ol> |
52 | <li>Use the traditional system password files: <code>/etc/passwd</code> and |
53 | <code>/etc/shadow</code>, possibly in conjunction with the PAM |
54 | library.</li> |
55 | <li>Maintain all this information in a GDBM or a DB database. The GDBM or |
56 | the DB database is compiled from plain text files. Perl scripts provide a |
57 | simple interface for creating and editing the authentication information, |
58 | then a script compiles the plain text files into a database.</li> |
59 | <li>Use an LDAP server for authentication.</li> |
60 | <li>Use a table in a MySQL database for authentication.</li> |
61 | <li>Use a table in a PostgreSQL database for authentication.</li> |
62 | </ol> |
63 | |
64 | <p>All Courier components that use this authentication library, therefore, |
65 | will be able to authenticate E-mail accounts |
66 | using any of the above methods.</p> |
67 | |
68 | <p>Additional information can be found in the <a |
69 | href="INSTALL.html">INSTALL</a> file.</p> |
70 | |
71 | <p>The authentication API is <a href="authlib.html">documented</a>.</p> |
72 | |
73 | <h2>Further resources</h2> |
74 | |
75 | <p>Subscribe to the courier-users mailing list: <a |
76 | href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/courier-users"><code>http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/courier-users</code></a>.</p> |
77 | |
78 | <p></p> |
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