Account Manager

terminal version - edit aliases & forwards


When you choose to edit your e-mail aliases and forwards, you will be presented with a list of options. Which options you see will depend on whether or not you currently have any aliases or forwards defined. You will see one of the following two screens; the first one if you don't currently have any aliases or forwards, and the second if you do. 


Note: For information about how to use the editor and about the format of       
the aliases/forwards file, please visit the support page at:
http://www.twistedbits.net/support


You do not appear to have any aliases or forwards defined.
Would you like to:

  1 - Create some aliases and/or forwards in a text editor?

  2 - Load (import) a set of aliases and/or forwards from
      a file in your home directory?

  3 - Quit


What'll it be, John? -->
You will see the above screen if you do not currently have any aliases or forwards defined. 

Note: For information about how to use the editor and about the format of       
the aliases/forwards file, please visit the support page at:
http://www.twistedbits.net/support


You appear to already have some aliases or forwards defined.
Would you like to:

  1 - Edit your current aliases and/or forwards in a text editor?

  2 - Save (export) your current aliases and/or forwards to a file
      in your home directory?

  3 - Load (import) a new set of aliases and/or forwards from a file
      in your home directory?

  4 - Delete your current aliases and/or forwards?

  5 - Quit


What'll it be, John? -->
You will see the above screen if you do have some aliases or forwards defined.

These options are pretty much the same, having the following choices in common:
- Use the editor to create/edit your aliases and forwards
Your aliases and forwards are pulled up in a text editor, and you can create/edit/delete them.
- Load your aliases and forwards from a file (import)
Your aliases and forwards are loaded from a previously saved file. This allows you to save several different configurations in different files and load them whenever you like, instead of having to manually edit all of your aliases whenever you want to go to a different configuration.

Another use for this feature is to use a text editor on your own computer to create the aliases and forwards, then FTP them to your home directory and use the account manager to load the file.

When you select this option, the account manager will ask you to type in the location of the file to load in.
- Quit
The second menu gives you two additional options:
- Save your aliases and forwards to a file (export)
This option is the opposite of the load (import) command. This option allows you to take your currently defined aliases & forwards and save them to a file in your home directory.

When you select this option, the account manager will ask you to type in the location of the file to save to. Note that if a file of the same name already exists, it will be overwritten, so be careful.
- Delete all of your aliases and forwrads
This one is pretty obvious; all of your aliases and forwards will be deleted.
Obviously, the above two options wouldn't make sense if you didn't have any aliases or forwards to export or delete... That's why they don't appear if you don't have any aliases or forwards defined.
Once you have either finished editing your aliases and forwards in the text editor or loaded them from a file, the account manager will do a validation check on them to help to eliminate any obvious problems. A formatting check is performed to ensure that the general format of the file is acceptable, and a permission check is performed to be sure that you have only defined aliases and forwards for your own domains. (As a side effect, the permission check also doubles as a domain spellchecker.)

The following three "screen shots" show some of the different screens you might see as a result of the validation process: 

Note: For information about how to use the editor and about the format of       
the aliases/forwards file, please visit the support page at:
http://www.twistedbits.net/support


You have made changes to your aliases and forwards.
At this time, we'll perform a sanity check on those changes to be
sure that the formatting is OK and that you have only made changes
to your own domain(s)...


The format of your aliases and forwards file was invalid.
Remember, the format should be two columns, seperated by whitespace.
(Be sure you don't have any leading or trailing whitespace...)
The formatting error is located on line 1.

At this point, would you like to:

  1 - Use the text editor to try to fix the problem(s)?

  2 - Quit, discarding the changes you made?


What'll it be, John? -->

The above "screen shot" shows the results of the validation process finding a formatting problem with the file. 

Note: For information about how to use the editor and about the format of       
the aliases/forwards file, please visit the support page at:
http://www.twistedbits.net/support


You have made changes to your aliases and forwards.
At this time, we'll perform a sanity check on those changes to be
sure that the formatting is OK and that you have only made changes
to your own domain(s)...


On line 1, you defined an alias for a domain which you do not have
permission to control.  Check to be sure you did not make a typo.
If you believe you are supposed to have permission to create aliases
and forwards for the domain in question, please notify us at
support@twistedbits.net

At this point, would you like to:

  1 - Use the text editor to try to fix the problem(s)?

  2 - Quit, discarding the changes you made?


What'll it be, John? -->

The above "screen shot" shows the results of the validation process finding a permission problem with the file. 

Note: For information about how to use the editor and about the format of       
the aliases/forwards file, please visit the support page at:
http://www.twistedbits.net/support


You have made changes to your aliases and forwards.
At this time, we'll perform a sanity check on those changes to be
sure that the formatting is OK and that you have only made changes
to your own domain(s)...



Looks OK to me!
At this point, would you like to:

  1 - Use the text editor to view or edit your aliases and/or forwards?

  2 - Save the changes to your aliases and/or forwards?

  3 - Quit, discarding the changes you made?


What'll it be, John? -->

The above "screen shot" shows the results of the validation process finding no problems with the file.

As you can see, when the account manager finds a problem with your aliases and forwards, it gives you the option of opening up the editor to try to fix the problems, or quitting, discarding any changes you have made since you last saved your aliases and forwards. Also, notice that it tells you which line the error occured on, which may be of some assistance to you if you've got a lot of aliases or forwards defined. (Note: It will actually only tell you the line number of the last error, if there is more than one. Thus, after you fix that problem, it'd find the other problem and give you that line number.)

Once the account manager is happy with the file, it will present you with the "Save" option which lets you save the changes to your aliases and forwards. Note: Your forwards and aliases will go into effect as soon as you use the save option. There may be a slight delay, but it should be less than a minute. 
   UW PICO(tm) 3.6   File: /usr/local/tmp/virtusertable_tb1.tmp

support@mydomain.com    tb1
wemaster@mydomain.com   john.doe@somewhere.com                                  
@mydomain.com           tb1














                                [ Read 3 lines ]
^G Get Help  ^O WriteOut  ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg   ^K Cut Text  ^C Cur Pos
^X Exit      ^J Justify   ^W Where is  ^V Next Pg   ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell

Above is a screen shot showing what the editor looks like. Its not incredibly powerful, but its pretty simple to use and there is decent on-screen help. You can use your arrow keys to move around in the file. As you can see from the on-screen menu, to exit the editor when you're done, use ctrl-x (^X). When you hit ^X, it'll ask you wether you want to save the changes you made or not. Hit Y or N. If you answered yes, it'll prompt you for the filename to save to, and it'll have a name already filled in there, something along the lines of /usr/local/tmp/virtusertable_usercode.tmp. Just accept that default by hitting enter. If you want to cancel without saving, use ctrl-c (^C).

For information about how to define the aliases and forwards themselves, (i.e. the data format) please look here.