va guide

Andrew McGill, andrew at ledge dot co.za

1. Overview

You might like to read the introduction before you continue with how to destroy your system using va.

va is run from the command line in the format

va [something] [action] [details...]

The something which you specify should be something that va expects, otherwise you get a rather long usage message explaining the correct usage.

2. va domain

Commands to create a new domain (mail, dns and web hosting)

Web site administration:
  va domain create [domain.co.za] [ftppassword]
        Create a new domain hosted on this site
  va domain passwd [domain.co.za] [ftppassword]
        Set the password for an existing ftp site
  va domain delete [domain.co.za] 
        Delete a domain, and all users, all web sites, all config
  va domain su [domain.co.za]
        Execute commands as the site owner of the domain
  va domain suspend [domain.co.za]
        Disable mail and web services for the domain.  Replace the web site and
        mail handling with a rude message.
  va domain unsuspend [domain.co.za]
        Cancel a suspended domain

• web server: A regular user (domain.net), with a home directory. This user is intended to upload files to their home directory via FTP. The domain is initially created as a copy of the skeleton ("Site under construction").
• web server: A name based virtualhost entry for the site with separate logging (www.domain.net:80 and plain domain.net:80)
• mail server: An entry in sendmail.cw (we receive mail for this domain)
• backup mail server: An entry in relay_domains (we will relay for this domain)
• primary dns server: A copy of the template.zone file served as authoritative
• secondary dns server: A slave entry, with the primary dns set as master

• A request to register the DNS servers you are now serving zones for. This has to be requested manually (e-mails and web pages or whatever it takes).

3. va mailbox and va alias

Commands to control what happens when we receive mail for the domain we administer.

Virtual mailboxes and aliases:
  va mailbox add [alias@domain.co.za] [password]
        Create a new user mailbox (user is alias.domain.co.za)
  va mailbox del [alias@domain.co.za]
        Delete a user mailbox
  va mailbox passwd [user.domain.co.za] [password]
        Set the password for an existing mailbox
  va alias add [alias@domain.co.za] [login.name]
        Create an additional e-mail address pointing to an existing mailbox
  va alias del [alias@domain.co.za]
        Delete an e-mail alias
  va info
        Show mailboxes for domains you administer

• A regular user (user.domain.net) who can receive mail via POP3 only. This user cannot FTP or login using the shell.
• An entry in the virtusertable file redirecting mail from user@domain.net to user.domain.net

An alias consists of:

• An entry in the virtusertable file redirecting mail from alias@domain.net to any e-mail address.

4. va admin

Commands to create and control users that may run va

Administrative commands: (root user only)
  va admin create [adminname] [password]
        Create a new administrative user account
  va admin grant [adminname] [domain.co.za]
        Grant domain administration permission to an existing user
  va admin delete [adminname]
        Remove an administrative user (instructions) (but not their sites)
  va admin suspend [adminname]
        Disable the password for an admin user
  va admin unsuspend [adminname]
        Enable the password for an admin user

5. va install

va includes some code to automate (some of) the procedure of linux to virtual hosting in three minutes flat:

Miscellaneous:
  va install
        Install default settings, files and directories.  This will overwrite
        your skeleton files in /etc/admin.

• Create a unix group named admin (oops, you had one already?)
• Include /etc/va/httpd.inc at the end of your http.conf
• ... er something is missing here...