How To Install maildrop on Ubuntu
Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )
3 minutes • 555 words
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install maildrop on Ubuntu.
What is maildrop
maildrop is:
maildrop is a mail delivery agent (MDA), a program which reads a mail message from standard input and then delivers the message to your mailbox.
maildrop can deliver mail both in mbox and maildir storing formats. It can read instructions from a file, directing it how to log deliveries, and how to filter incoming mail, for example to deliver mail to alternate mailboxes, or forward it somewhere else, or pipe it through external programs.
It performs all the same functions as procmail, but unlike procmail, maildrop uses a structured filtering language which is a bit easier on the eyes. Other differences from procmail include not skipping syntax errors in filter files (instead deferring the mails for later processing) and being more resource-efficient when processing mails (not loading large messages right into memory).
maildrop in this package sets its permission to “rwxr-sr-x” (set-GID) and is owned by “root:mail”.
maildrop also comes with the following additional programs:
- reformail, an e-mail reformatting tool, which can detect duplicate messages, manipulate message headers, split mailboxes into individual messages, and generate autoreply messages
- maildirmake, which creates maildirs, and maildir folders
- deliverquota, which delivers mail to maildirs while taking account software-imposed quotas
- reformime, a utility for reformatting MIME messages
- makemime, which creates MIME-formatted messages of arbitrary complexity
- lockmail, which creates dot-locks, file locks, and C-Client folder locks
- mailbot, a MIME-aware autoresponder utility
There are three methods to install maildrop on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install maildrop Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install maildrop using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install maildrop
Install maildrop Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install maildrop using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install maildrop
Install maildrop Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install maildrop using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install maildrop
How To Uninstall maildrop on Ubuntu
To uninstall only the maildrop package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove maildrop
Uninstall maildrop And Its Dependencies
To uninstall maildrop and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove maildrop
Remove maildrop Configurations and Data
To remove maildrop configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge maildrop
Remove maildrop configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove maildrop configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge maildrop
Dependencies
maildrop have the following dependencies:
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install maildrop package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.