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9 <title>README</title>
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13 <h1>Courier Authentication Library</h1>
14
15 <p>This is the Courier authentication library. Copies of this
16 library code used to exist in other tarballs: Courier,
17 Courier-IMAP, and SqWebMail. Building and installing any of these
18 packages would've automatically installed this authentication
19 code.</p>
20
21 <p>The authentication library is now a separate, standalone
22 package. This authentication library must now be installed,
23 separately, before upgrading to the following builds (or if
24 installing them for the first time): Courier 0.48, Courier-IMAP
25 4.0, and SqWebMail 5.0. See <a href="NEWS.html">NEWS</a> for more
26 information.</p>
27
28 <p>Download: <a target="_blank" href=
29 "http://www.courier-mta.org/download.php#authlib">http://www.courier-mta.org/download.php#authlib</a></p>
30
31 <h2>Overview</h2>
32
33 <p>The Courier authentication library provides authentication
34 services for other Courier applications. In this context, the
35 term "authentication" refers to the following functions:</p>
36
37 <ol>
38 <li>Take a userid or a loginid, and a password. Determine
39 whether the loginid and the password are valid.</li>
40
41 <li>Given a userid, obtain the following information about the
42 userid:
43
44 <ol type="A">
45 <li>The account's home directory.</li>
46
47 <li>The numeric system userid and groupid that owns all
48 files associated with this account.</li>
49
50 <li>The location of the account's maildir.</li>
51
52 <li>Any maildir quota defined for this account. See the
53 Courier documentation for more information on maildir
54 quotas.</li>
55
56 <li>Other miscellaneous account-specific options.</li>
57 </ol>
58 </li>
59
60 <li>Change the password associated with a loginid.</li>
61
62 <li>Obtain a complete list of all loginids.</li>
63 </ol>
64
65 <p>The Courier authentication library provides alternative
66 implementations of these authentication services:</p>
67
68 <ol>
69 <li>Use the traditional system password files:
70 <code>/etc/passwd</code> and <code>/etc/shadow</code>, possibly
71 in conjunction with the PAM library.</li>
72
73 <li>Maintain all this information in a GDBM or a DB database.
74 The GDBM or the DB database is compiled from plain text files.
75 Perl scripts provide a simple interface for creating and
76 editing the authentication information, then a script compiles
77 the plain text files into a database.</li>
78
79 <li>Use an LDAP server for authentication.</li>
80
81 <li>Use a table in a MySQL database for authentication.</li>
82
83 <li>Use a table in a PostgreSQL database for
84 authentication.</li>
85 </ol>
86
87 <p>All Courier components that use this authentication library,
88 therefore, will be able to authenticate E-mail accounts using any
89 of the above methods.</p>
90
91 <p>Additional information can be found in the <a href=
92 "INSTALL.html">INSTALL</a> file.</p>
93
94 <p>The authentication API is <a href=
95 "authlib.html">documented</a>.</p>
96
97 <h2>Further resources</h2>
98
99 <p>Subscribe to the <i><a target="_blank" href=
100 "http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/courier-users">courier-users</a></i>
101 mailing list. Go to
102 <code>http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/courier-users</code>
103 to subscribe to <i>courier-users</i>, or send a message to
104 <code>&lt;courier-users-request</code><code>@lists.sourceforge.net&gt;</code>
105 and put "subscribe" in the subject line. Search the list archives
106 at <a target="_blank" href=
107 "http://markmail.org/browse/net.sourceforge.lists.courier-users">http://markmail.org/browse/net.sourceforge.lists.courier-users</a>.</p>
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