Postmaster problem with Ubuntu 8.04 Postfix Virtual Domains and users

[almeister9]

Hi all,

I have recently (a couple of months ago) built a Postfix mail server on Ubuntu 8.04 using Falko's excellent howto.

Everything has been working fine so far. I have an email address called newsletter that I use to send newsletters, which receives bounce messages and replies, another email address called unsubscribe, which receives unsubscribe requests. I have also recently added an email address called postmaster. I am enrolling in microsofts JMRP Program to help my chances of being able to send to hotmail accounts and also their SNDS program.

I can log into the postmaster account using squirrelmail and the original Welcome message that I sent to it to create the directory is there. I can also send from it to any address I wish, inside or outside the domain.

I can receive emails sent from addresses within the domain but I cannot, however, receive from addresses outside the domain. I have tried from several different external addresses and nothing shows up.

When I initially ssh into my server and log into (username) the prompt often tels me "you have new mail". I type "mail to check it and delete it.

during the initial setup I did do this part of the howto

8 Modify /etc/aliases

Now we should open /etc/aliases. Make sure that postmaster points to root and root to your own username or your email address, e.g. like this:

vi /etc/aliases

[...]
postmaster: root
root: postmaster@yourdomain.tld
[...]

or like this (if administrator is your own username):

[...]
postmaster: root
root:   administrator
[...]

Whenever you modify /etc/aliases, you must run

newaliases

afterwards and restart Postfix:

/etc/init.d/postfix restart

mine intitially looked like this:

[...]
postmaster: root
root:  alan
[...]

I have tried to change it to this

[...]
postmaster: root
root: postmaster@myfqdn
[...]

but either way I still cannot receive emails into the postmaster account, or if I am, I dont know how to find them. I have been using squirrel mail, is there something that I need to know about the postmaster account?

thank you in advance to any who can spare the time.
Cheers
Al.

[falko]

postmaster is a system user, that's why the virtual mailbox doesn't work. postmaster emails are sent to the root account (because of /etc/aliases).

[almeister9]

Thanks for your reply Falko,

If I log in as root
and type mail
I get
no mail for root

how do I read emails sent to postmaster?

[almeister9]

Thanks for your help Falko,

I discovered that I wasn't receiving emails in any of the accounts.
My modem/Router had dropped the port forwarding.
Re-did the port forwarding and everything is OK now.

D-Link DSL-G604T (wireless turned off)

I will keep an eye on it and if it happens again I will replace it.