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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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