Comments on Virtual Users And Domains With Postfix, Courier, MySQL And SquirrelMail (Ubuntu 14.04LTS)

This document describes how to install a Postfix mail server that is based on virtual users and domains, i.e. users and domains that are in a MySQL database. I'll also demonstrate the installation and configuration of Courier (Courier-POP3, Courier-IMAP), so that Courier can authenticate against the same MySQL database Postfix uses.

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By: Milaensis

By following this guide to the letter SSL / TLS does not work! No answers on any port. Do you have a solution?

By: admin

Check postfix master.cf file to ensure that there is no # in front of the smtps and Submission lines.

By:

It would be helpful if you added in how to enable phpmyadmin so that you can access it in a web browser as you have shown.

BTW, (I'm assuming that the IP address of your mail server system is 192.168.0.100) you can access phpMyAdmin over http://192.168.0.100/phpmyadmin/ in a browser and log in as mail_admin. Then you can have a look at the database. Later on you can use phpMyAdmin to administrate your mail server.

Maybe add these lines somewhere.

ln -s /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf /etc/apache2/conf-available/phpmyadmin.conf

a2enconf phpmyadmin
service apache2 reload

Thank for the tutorial.

By:

I am having serious issues. I have installed 3 times, followed to the letter your guide.

First AWEESOME guide. I am scratching my head on this one. I am trying to set up an email server and know Exchange very very well. BUT do not want to give MS any of my hard earned money. I also have quite extensive background (not used for a while) in Linux and Ubuntu

I am using 14.04

whenever an IMAP client whether it be MS Live Mail, other IMAP, or Squirrelmail, I am not making a connection

I have sent numerous test messages to the users that were created. These were sent from mailx, Gmail, and Yahoo.

I don't even see where the others hit the system from GMail, or Yahoo.

But on the one sent from mailx, it appears that it was delivered, but then dropped ?????

log entries:

Jun 5 19:30:42 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/pickup[30580]: 24394E349E: uid=1000 from=<[email protected]>
Jun 5 19:30:42 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/cleanup[607]: 24394E349E: message-id=<[email protected]>
Jun 5 19:30:42 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/qmgr[30581]: 24394E349E: from=<[email protected]>, size=358, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/smtpd[616]: connect from localhost[127.0.0.1]
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/smtpd[616]: A9FCCE34A1: client=localhost[127.0.0.1]
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/cleanup[607]: A9FCCE34A1: message-id=<[email protected]>
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/qmgr[30581]: A9FCCE34A1: from=<[email protected]>, size=802, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail amavis[557]: (00557-01) Passed CLEAN {RelayedOpenRelay}, <[email protected]> -> <wjw003@localhost>, Message-ID: <[email protected]>, mail_id: ifjtmyWInhAp, Hits: 2.425, size: 358, queued_as: A9FCCE34A1, 6495 ms
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/smtp[611]: 24394E349E: to=<wjw003@localhost>, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024, delay=6.8, delays=0.3/0.03/0.07/6.5, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 from MTA(smtp:[127.0.0.1]:10025): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as A9FCCE34A1)
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/qmgr[30581]: 24394E349E: removed
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/local[619]: A9FCCE34A1: to=<[email protected]>, orig_to=<wjw003@localhost>, relay=local, delay=0.19, delays=0.08/0.04/0/0.07, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered to mailbox)
Jun 5 19:30:48 DS-JMW-UMail postfix/qmgr[30581]: A9FCCE34A1: removed

Now, when I use the clients to access IMAP, I get the following errors:

Jun 5 19:30:49 DS-JMW-UMail imapd: Connection, ip=[::1]
Jun 5 19:30:49 DS-JMW-UMail imapd: chdir wjw003/wjw003/: No such file or directory
Jun 5 19:30:49 DS-JMW-UMail imapd: wjw003: No such file or directory

Please help me for I have not much hair left to lose...

Thank you in advance!

By: Anonymous

I have seen this too!

Apparently the directories, in /home/vmail/domain.tld aren't created when the mail arrives.

The reason might be an permission issue, not sure though, since I don't have any hair to lose any-more. I gave up on it.

I could use a sponge though, to polish the great planes.

Every time there is a DNS or mail or kernel update with Ubuntu, it breaks my system in bits and pieces. Sick of running around and fixing it!

Although, using the tut here to the letter too (several times), on a fresh install, it didn't work. It goes from authentication failure, to directory not found. Others, claim that saslauth doesn't know how to handle 64 bit OS's. Dunno!

By: HogensHero

I know this is a stupid question but are you using a fully qualified domain name or are you using domain.tld?

Apparently the directories, in /home/vmail/domain.tld aren't created when the mail arrives.

If you are using domain.tld you need to use your actual domain name. I was able to get this up and running on 14.04 in 20 minutes using this tutorial and my domain name.

By: Anonymous

First of all, thank you! Thank you for providing the only bl**dy "how to" for SSL-enabled imap/smtp/postfix on the web that actually works!! :D I owe you a pint!

I have two questions/suggestions for a possible update:

How to tweak the configuration to force the use of SSL for imap/smtp.
Why is samba (smb) needed? Seems like an odd dependency which I'd like to remove.

Since installing the dependences for that libpam-smbpass package, I get the following error every time I use 'sudo' :

no talloc stackframe at ../source3/param/loadparm.c:4864, leaking memory

By: Chris

You are the MAN!!! After following that long process... which by the way is the only one I could find which allowed for multiple domains... I went to my_first_domain/squirrelmail and it worked!!! Thank you so much!!! One question if you get to it... in the beginning I had to disable apparmor which is a security service. Why does it have to be disabled, can it be re-enabled now? Was it just for setup? If not, is there a way to fix permissions UID's GID's so that it can be re-enabled? Thanks again!

By: w2walter

Hi there, really thank you for the tutorial it was great and detailed and I could set up for the first time all of that!

The only thing is that I lunched an update apt-get upgrade yesterday 18th april, and it asked me to update postfix.

After that postfix restart and I receive an error related to quota patch. I tried to search if there is a new version of the patch but it seems not. I can't understand if this error means that quota will not work or something else will be broken

postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_overquota_bounce=yespostconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_maildir_limit_message="The user you are trying to reach is over quota."postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_maildir_extended=yespostconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_mailbox_limit_override=yes

Thank you again, Im a web developer and not so good as sysadmin. I love linux but it's really hard to know all the secret about programs. it's years that I use plesk on my projects to fast deploy a server and configure it, but when comes time to patch or control spam plesk is a mess and most of the time I have to destroy and rebuild my cloud server. I want a solution that I can update only with apt-get upgrade and stay safe.

If you have any other suggestion it will be appreciated.

Walter

By: Mark Rhyne

I followed this guide for Ubuntu 14.10. but squrrel mail would not send or recieve.

I had to add an A record for server1 to my domain:

server1 A TTL 3600 IP ???.???.???.???

and made some changes to the postfix config file.

There were some problems as I had to change the postfix config to recieve email externally.

# See /usr/share/postfix/main.cf.dist for a commented, more complete version# Debian specific: Specifying a file name will cause the first# line of that file to be used as the name. The Debian default# is /etc/mailname.#myorigin = /etc/mailnamesmtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu)biff = no# appending .domain is the MUA's job.append_dot_mydomain = no# Uncomment the next line to generate "delayed mail" warnings#delay_warning_time = 4hreadme_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix# TLS parameterssmtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/postfix/smtpd.certsmtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/postfix/smtpd.keysmtpd_use_tls = yessmtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scachesmtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache# See /usr/share/doc/postfix/TLS_README.gz in the postfix-doc package for# information on enabling SSL in the smtp client.# smtpd_relay_restrictions = myhostname = server1.example.comalias_maps = hash:/etc/aliasesalias_database = hash:/etc/aliasesmyorigin = /etc/mailnamemydestination = server1.example.com, localhost, localhost.localdomain# mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/32mailbox_size_limit = 0recipient_delimiter = +inet_protocols = allhtml_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix/htmlvirtual_alias_domains = virtual_alias_maps = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_forwardings.cf, mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_email2email.cfvirtual_mailbox_domains = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_domains.cfvirtual_mailbox_maps = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_mailboxes.cfvirtual_mailbox_base = /home/vmailvirtual_uid_maps = static:5000virtual_gid_maps = static:5000smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yesbroken_sasl_auth_clients = yessmtpd_sasl_authenticated_header = yessmtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unauth_destinationtransport_maps = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_transports.cfvirtual_maildir_extended = yesvirtual_mailbox_limit_maps = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_mailbox_limit_maps.cfvirtual_mailbox_limit_override = yesvirtual_maildir_limit_message = "The user you are trying to reach is over quota."virtual_overquota_bounce = yesproxy_read_maps = $local_recipient_maps $mydestination $virtual_alias_maps $virtual_alias_domains $virtual_mailbox_maps $virtual_mailbox_domains $relay_recipient_maps $relay_domains $canonical_maps $sender_canonical_maps $recipient_canonical_maps $relocated_maps $transport_maps $mynetworks $virtual_mailbox_limit_mapscontent_filter = amavis:[127.0.0.1]:10024receive_override_options = no_address_mappingsinet_interfaces = all

By: Daniel Smedegaard Buus

FYI: If you're using a CA signed certificate, you can use this settings instead:

postconf -e smtpd_tls_key_file='/etc/ssl/mydomain.com/server.key'

postconf -e smtpd_tls_cert_file='/etc/ssl/mydomain.com/server.crt'

postconf -e smtpd_tls_CAfile='/etc/ssl/mydomain.com/server.ca-bundle'

By: Daniel Smedegaard Buus

You should probably be more specific about the "valid FQDN hostname" when configuring postfix. It not only has to be valid, it also cannot be the primary hostname of the server itself. That is, if the mail server is also the web server, e.g. example.com, then postfix's myhostname and mydestination may not be example.com also. Otherwise, mail to here ends up in the /var/mail spool, and not in the appropriate location in /home/vmail.

I was banging my head with my setup. I have three virtual domains, but I could only successfully create mailboxes with your guide for the virtual domains that were not the same as myhostname in postfix's configuration. All mail to any address I created with phpMyAdmin would simply end up in /var/mail, and I could not log in via squirrelmail (the dreaded imapd "No such file or directory" mail log error).

I could create new virtualhosts (random ones that don't exist), add users, send a welcome mail, and watch their directories get created. But just not for my example.com main domain.

Turns out, prefixing myhostname and mydestination with anything would fix it. I ended up creating a DNS record for postfix.example.com, used that for postconf, and it worked:

postconf -e 'myhostname = postfix.example.com'postconf -e 'mydestination = postfix.example.com, localhost, localhost.localdomain'

I may still have misunderstood something, but at least it's what's got it working.

Thanks for a nice howto, by the way :)

By: Bee bop

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I had the same issue and your comment helped solve it.

I was getting these sort of things in syslog:

Sep 13 08:32:25 cloud postfix/trivial-rewrite[7081]: warning: do not list domain myFQDN.com in BOTH mydestination and virtual_mailbox_domains

By: Phelippe

Hello, nice tutorial, I have only one problem until now. On the /home/vmail folder hasn't created the folders relative to mailboxes. Is there any way to the service create the folder tree automaticaly ? (sorry about the english)

By: till

As far as I know, its not possible that postfix creates them automaticaly. you will have to use the maildirmake command to create them manually.

By: urgen

if dovecot 2.2 is used, do we need to patch the postfix (ver 2.11) with VDA patch ?

many thanks

By: Joe

Bit of an odd "glitch"? Users are able to send as any e-mail address they want, even worse Gmail delivers them to the inbox not spam. Is there anyway to limit users to their e-mail address plus any forwarders they have? or at least to the right domains?

The example below is happily sat in my gmail inbox as "Bill Gates <[email protected]>", despite failing an SPF check along the way.

---Example---

Delivered-To: [removed]@gmail.com

Received: by 10.25.87.205 with SMTP id l196csp1589456lfb;

Sun, 21 Jun 2015 12:57:50 -0700 (PDT)

X-Received: by 10.194.178.225 with SMTP id db1mr45815662wjc.153.1434916669900;

Sun, 21 Jun 2015 12:57:49 -0700 (PDT)

Return-Path: <[email protected]>

Received: from mail.[removed].com (mail.[removed].com. [[removed]])

by mx.google.com with ESMTP id by10si14936085wjb.148.2015.06.21.12.57.49

for <[removed]@gmail.com>;

Sun, 21 Jun 2015 12:57:49 -0700 (PDT)

Received-SPF: fail (google.com: domain of [email protected] does not designate [removed] as permitted sender) client-ip=[removed];

Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;

spf=fail (google.com: domain of [email protected] does not designate [removed] as permitted sender) [email protected];

dmarc=fail (p=NONE dis=NONE) header.from=microsoft.com

Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1])

by mail.[removed].com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5DAB214219

for <[removed]@gmail.com>; Sun, 21 Jun 2015 19:57:49 +0000 (UTC)

X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at mail.[removed].com

Received: from mail.[removed].com ([127.0.0.1])

by localhost (mail.[removed].com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024)

with ESMTP id gsSB32CiUJXp for <[removed]@gmail.com>;

Sun, 21 Jun 2015 19:57:43 +0000 (UTC)

Received: from mail.[removed].com (localhost [127.0.0.1])

(Authenticated sender: [removed]@[removed].com)

by mail.[removed].com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 9192814218

for <[removed]@gmail.com>; Sun, 21 Jun 2015 19:57:43 +0000 (UTC)

Received: from 81.174.135.138

(SquirrelMail authenticated user [removed]@[removed].com)

by mail.[removed].com with HTTP;

Sun, 21 Jun 2015 20:57:43 +0100

Message-ID: <38aa06786a37a69ccb5ebd49196af17f.squirrel@mail.[removed].com>

Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2015 20:57:43 +0100

Subject: Fail

From: "Bill Gates" <[email protected]>

To: [removed]@gmail.com

Reply-To: [email protected]

User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.23 [SVN]

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

X-Priority: 3 (Normal)

Importance: Normal

This message should fail to send...

By: Alessandro Iacuelli

After all installing, users can't login via squirrelmail. After a lot of workaround, I've changed the select in vi /etc/postfix/sasl/smtpd.conf and now it's all OK! Why? My change was from

sql_select: select password from users where email = '%u@%r'

sql_select: select password from users where email = '%u'

By: Daniel Leeson

Very good instruction.

Thank you!

By: Roman

All`s good... Before Im trying to login through squirrelmail.

ERROR: Connection dropped by IMAP server

telnet localhost 143

* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS CHILDREN NAMESPACE THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES SORT QUOTA IDLE ACL ACL2=UNION STARTTLS] Courier-IMAP ready. Copyright 1998-2011 Double Precision, Inc. See COPYING for distribution information.

Trying to fix it step by step, and reading manuals didnt takes effect. But man is very good

By: till

Did you sent an email to the mailbox first? the mailbox gets created when the first email arrives, the imap login wont work before.

By: Tobias

Nice setup.

One question though. Doesn't patching Postfix mean that everytime there is a security update for Postfix in Ubuntu, you need to manually patch the updated Ubuntu package again instead of just running apt-get upgrade? From a maintenance perspective, that feels awkward. What's the best way to automate updating Postfix with security updates then?

thanks,

Tobias

By: Rilisema

Great tutorial! For me the postfix patch didn't work ('wrong Unix version', running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), but that's fine for now.

After succesfully being able to login with the different user accounts for different domains I created, I want to configure a mail account on my Mac mail.

Getting mail is no problem, but connecting to SMTP fails. I am trying to connect with SSL to port 993, but the authentication fails.

Anyone any idea how to fix this?

By: Guido van Harten

On this page I read: 'Some time you can get an error as follows:-'. In my case there are no errors. What is the first command I have to give in my case? Do I have to continue at '4 Create The MySQL Database For Postfix/Courier'? or at another point?

By: till

Continue with:

apt-get updateapt-get build-dep postfix

By: Guido van Harten

Setting up a mailserver using this tutorial I often copy a block of commands and paste it into Ubuntu.

But when installing DCC, the block of commands do not match the newest version. The line

cd dcc-dccproc-1.3.154

should be replaced by

cd dcc-dccproc-1.3.158

or you have to place a note the user has to examine what the current version is.

By: Guido van Harten

When I go to server1.example.com/squirrelmail I see the login screen of squirrelmail. When I enter my login credentials, I see a 500-error page on server1.example.com/squirrelmail/src/webmail.php

Is there anybody who can tell me what I did wrong?

Regards,

Guido van Harten

By: Mohammed Ibrahim

Hello,

I am stuck at the quota patch step, i get the below error:

test ! -d debian/postfix || rm -rf debian/postfix/usr/bin/make tidymake[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/postfix-2.11.0'/usr/bin/make -f Makefile.in MAKELEVEL= Makefilesmake: Entering directory `/usr/src/postfix-2.11.0'(echo "# Do not edit -- this file documents how Postfix was built for your machine."; /bin/sh makedefs) >makedefs.tmpATTENTION:ATTENTION: Unknown system type: Linux 4.1.5-x86_64-linode61ATTENTION:make: *** [Makefiles] Error 1make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/postfix-2.11.0'make[1]: *** [Makefiles] Error 2make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/postfix-2.11.0'make: *** [clean-preunpatch] Error 2dpkg-buildpackage: error: debian/rules clean gave error exit status 2

By: Guido van Harten

After building the server according to this tutorial, it seems there is no mail for the created user. After typing the URL and login with the created account, sometimes I get an error 500 and sometimes Squirrelmail opens and returns "Connection dropped by imap-server".

In /home/vmail/example.com/sales/new I see a file with the name 1453467272.Vfd01I580009M899103.server,S=894

The file contains the mail with the welcome message and is 894 bytes. The hostname of my system starts with "server".

Why contains the filename of the written mail the (part of the) hostname and the size of the mail in the filename.

Hope anyone can help me.

Regards,

Guido van Harten

By: kelvenchi

squirrelmail login give me an error:Connection dropped by IMAP server. How can I resolve this problem. I followed you step by step and no error info thrown out on the screen.

By: Karel

As for a lot of others out there, this Daily Quota Report is always empty for me. I think, this is because this script assume one level of subdirectories for domain names and another level for user names. But my system is working for many years with structure only one level of folders, there folder name is user@domain. I think, I am not alone and someone should make another script for this case.

By: Yovan

Everything was great, no problems with installation but when i try to login in Squirrelmail i get this:

ERROR: Connection dropped by IMAP server.

my mail.err:

Apr 18 19:07:12 correo imapd: [email protected]: No such file or directory

Apr 18 19:11:14 correo imapd: [email protected]: No such file or directory

I verified user and password in MySQL db (mail) and these are the same credentials.

By: jose ricardo castellon

ayuda plase, Al iniciar la aplicacion loguandome squirrelmail me sale

ERROR: Connection dropped by IMAP server

By: Andrés Chandía

Hi there, I have this installation since ubuntu 10.04, and always works fine, but now I have upgraded to Xenial and first I had to solv

By: Andrés Chandía

Hey, my question is cropped, so I repeat it:

Hi there, I have this installation since ubuntu 10.04, and always works fine, but now I have upgraded to Xenial and first, I had to solv

By: Ilya

what about enabling spamassasin in /etc/default/spamassain

ENABLING=0?

i got logs that spamassain is disabled ,and i need to set ENABLED=1

how its exactly works?

thans

By: till

This setup uses amavisd to scan for spam in emails and amavisd loads the spamassassin code internally, so spamassassin itself shall not be enabled in /etc/default/spamassain.

By: Luca

Gave it a shot on ubuntu 16.04, but unfortunately PAM is "broken" because pam_mysql is not developed anymore:

saslauthd[2429]: PAM unable to dlopen(pam_mysql.so): /lib/security/pam_mysql.so: undefined symbol: make_scrambled_password

saslauthd[2429]: PAM adding faulty module: pam_mysql.so

saslauthd[2429]: DEBUG: auth_pam: pam_authenticate failed: Module is unknown

saslauthd[2429]: do_auth : auth failure: [user=xerox] [service=smtp] [realm=] [mech=pam] [reason=PAM auth error]

Any plan to update the guide for 16.04 ?

By: Stan

Hi,

I am running ubuntu 14.04.5.LTS.

when restarting posftix, I get those messages:

postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_overquota_bounce=yes

postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_maildir_limit_message="The user you are trying to reach is over quota."

postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_maildir_extended=yes

postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_mailbox_limit_override=yes

/usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_overquota_bounce=yes

/usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_maildir_limit_message="The user you are trying to reach is over quota."

/usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_maildir_extended=yes

/usr/sbin/postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: virtual_mailbox_limit_override=yes

What is your advise?

Thanks in advance.

By: Duffy

You need to recompile Postfix with the quota fix in. Looks like you've done an auto-update and you've got the stock Postfix installed now.

By: dave