Hi,

we are still using courier 0.32 and are currently thinking about updating to the current version 0.37. From what I see from the docs, the authentication code has changed quite a bit between these two versions, and we are using a custom authentication module that helps with transparently migrating accounts over from our old POP e-mail server.

Basically, this custom module verifies username/password against the old system and then proceeds to create the new account "on the fly". Our custom module does no more than calling a perl script which does the actual work, so our C module is quite simple, only has very few lines of code.

I am now trying to adapt that module to the new authentication code. If I understand correctly, I am expected to change the code in preauthcustom.c to do what I need. If this the recommended way of creating a custom auth module? Or is it a better idea t make a copy of the authcustom, creating an authscript module? How do I adapt the build process to have the new module automatically built?

Also, the new code asks for a function that simply verifies if the user account in question exists. Since I am validating against a background POP3 system, I can't say if an account exists. The only thing I can do is verifying if a given password belongs to a given account. If either password or account is wrong, I get the same error state, so I can't say if this is the wrong password for an existing account. What is my authpre function to return in this case? Should I always return "account exists"?

What is the recommended method of getting a single parameter (here: the path name to the perl script doing the actual work) into the authentication module? Should I copy some code from authmysql, reading my own config file, or should I relay on an environment variable passed in from the init script (probably reading from /etc/courier/pop3d conffile)?

Any hints will be appreciated.

Greetings Marc