[TriLUG] Vacation message bounces

[Douglas Ward]

I am running a postfix mail server with approximately 1200 mailboxes.  Users
access their mailboxes by using IMAP, POP3 or through the web
(Squirrelmail).  I would like for them to be able to forward their account
and/or set an out of office message using Squirrelmail.  Forwarding has
proven to be glitchy but does work fairly well overall.  The out of office
assistant does not work.  Postfix bounces all messages to the mailbox with
the error message listed below (with all relevant information).  According
to the man file for vacation I have manually run vacation -I <username> for
testing purposes.  It looks like neither plugin is formatting the files
properly.  They do not appear to be creating the .vacation.db file either.
Since I do not use cpanel, courier or qmail I am left with these two
options.  I abandoned both plugins and tried creating all of the files
manually.  Postfix is still bouncing the messages.  I am stumped.  I had
hoped to manually create the files and then work backwards from there but
nothing works.  I did not find much in Google that was helpful.  I would
sincerely appreciate any advice.

Distribution: Mandriva 2006
Postfix version: 2.2.5
Squirrelmail version: 1.4.5
Vacation version: 1.2.6.1

Bounce error generated by postfix:
Command died with status 1: "/usr/bin/vacation
   douglas"

.forward file (as formatted by autoresponder plugin)
"|/usr/bin/vacation douglas"

.forward file (as formatted by vacation_local plugin)
"|/usr/bin/vacation douglas"
\douglas

Manually created .forward file:
\douglas "|/usr/bin/vacation douglas"

[root at clergymail douglas]# ls -ahl /home/douglas
total 88K
drwxr-xr-x     6 douglas douglas 4.0K Aug  3 10:24 ./
drwxr-xr-x  1185 root    root     20K Jul 27 13:34 ../
-rw-------     1 douglas douglas   61 Jul 16 12:58 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--     1 douglas douglas   24 May 11 08:07 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--     1 douglas douglas  191 May 11 08:07 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--     1 douglas douglas  124 May 11 08:07 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x     2 douglas douglas 4.0K Jul 12 15:19 bkupexec/
-rw-r--r--     1 douglas douglas   38 Aug  3 10:23 .forward
drwx------     3 douglas douglas 4.0K Aug  3 10:28 Mail/
-rw-r--r--     1 douglas douglas   18 Jul 20 10:03 .mailboxlist
drwxr-xr-x     2 douglas douglas 4.0K Jul 13 20:08 Pictures/
-rw-r--r--     1 douglas douglas 3.8K May 11 08:07 .screenrc
drwx------     2 douglas douglas 4.0K May 11 08:07 tmp/
-rw-r--r--     1 douglas douglas  12K Aug  3 10:24 .vacation.db
-rw-r--r--     1 douglas douglas  148 Aug  3 10:14 .vacation.msg
-rw-------     1 douglas douglas  703 Jul 16 12:56 .viminfo