12 Test Postfix

To see if Postfix is ready for SMTP-AUTH and TLS, run

telnet localhost 25

After you have established the connection to your Postfix mail server type

ehlo localhost

If you see the lines

250-STARTTLS

and

250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN

everything is fine:

root@server1:/usr/local/sbin# telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.localdomain.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 server1.example.com ESMTP Postfix (Ubuntu)
<-- ehlo localhost
250-server1.example.com
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10240000
250-VRFY
250-ETRN
250-STARTTLS
250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8BITMIME
250 DSN
<-- quit
221 2.0.0 Bye
Connection closed by foreign host.
root@server1:/usr/local/sbin#

Type

quit

to return to the system shell.

13 Populate The Database And Test

To populate the database you can use the MySQL shell:

mysql -u root -p

USE mail;

At least you have to create entries in the tables domains and users:

INSERT INTO `domains` (`domain`) VALUES ('example.com');
INSERT INTO `users` (`email`, `password`, `quota`) VALUES ('sales@example.com', ENCRYPT('secret'), 10485760);

(Please take care that you use the ENCRYPT syntax in the second INSERT statement in order to encrypt the password!)

If you want to make entries in the other two tables, that would look like this:

INSERT INTO `forwardings` (`source`, `destination`) VALUES ('info@example.com', 'sales@example.com');
INSERT INTO `transport` (`domain`, `transport`) VALUES ('example.com', 'smtp:mail.example.com');

To leave the MySQL shell, type

quit;

For most people it is easier if they have a graphical front-end to MySQL; therefore you can also use phpMyAdmin (in this example under http://192.168.0.100/phpmyadmin/ or http://server1.example.com/phpmyadmin/) to administrate the mail database. Again, when you create a user, go sure that you use the ENCRYPT function to encrypt the password:

I do not think I have to explain the domains and users table further.

The forwardings table can have entries like the following:

The transport table can have entries like these:

See

man transport

for more details.

Please keep in mind that the order of entries in the transport table is important! The entries will be followed from the top to the bottom.

Important: Postfix uses a caching mechanism for the transports, therefore it might take a while until you changes in the transport table take effect. If you want them to take effect immediately, run

postfix reload

after you have made your changes in the transport table.

14 Send A Welcome Email For Creating Maildir

When you create a new email account and try to fetch emails from it (with POP3/IMAP) you will probably get error messages saying that the Maildir doesn't exist. The Maildir is created automatically when the first email arrives for the new account. Therefore it's a good idea to send a welcome email to a new account.

First, we install the mailx package:

apt-get install mailutils

To send a welcome email to sales@example.com, we do this:

mailx sales@example.com

You will be prompted for the subject. Type in the subject (e.g. Welcome), then press ENTER, and in the next line type your message. When the message is finished, press ENTER again so that you are in a new line, then press CTRL+D; if you don't want to cc the mail, press ENTER again:

root@server1:/usr/local/sbin# mailx sales@example.com
Cc: <-- ENTER
Subject: Welcome <-- ENTER
Welcome! Have fun with your new mail account. <-- ENTER
<-- CTRL+D
root@server1:/usr/local/sbin#

This page is licensed under a Creative Commons License.