Virtual Users And Domains With Postfix, Courier, MySQL And SquirrelMail (CentOS 6.3 x86_64) - Page 6

This tutorial exists for these OS versions

On this page

  1. 18 Installing SquirrelMail
  2. 19 VMA (Virtual Mail Admin Interface)
  3. 20 References
  4. 21 Links

18 Installing SquirrelMail

SquirrelMail is a webmail interface that will let your users send and receive emails in a browser. This chapter shows how to install it and adjust it to our setup so that users can even change their email account password from the SquirrelMail interface.

To install SquirrelMail, we run:

yum install squirrelmail php-pear-DB

Afterwards we restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/httpd restart

SquirrelMail comes with some pre-installed plugins, unfortunately none of them is capable of letting us change our email password in our MySQL database. But there's the Change SQL Password plugin which we can install manually:

cd /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins
wget http://www.squirrelmail.org/plugins/change_sqlpass-3.3-1.2.tar.gz
tar xvfz change_sqlpass-3.3-1.2.tar.gz
cd change_sqlpass
cp config.php.sample config.php

Now we must edit config.php and adjust it to our setup. Please adjust the $csp_dsn, $lookup_password_query, $password_update_queries, $password_encryption, $csp_salt_static, and $csp_delimiter variables as follows and comment out $csp_salt_query:

vi config.php
[...]
$csp_dsn = 'mysql://mail_admin:[email protected]/mail';
[...]
$lookup_password_query = 'SELECT count(*) FROM users WHERE email = "%1" AND password = %4';
[...]
$password_update_queries = array('UPDATE users SET password = %4 WHERE email = "%1"');
[...]
$password_encryption = 'MYSQLENCRYPT';
[...]
$csp_salt_static = 'LEFT(password, 2)';
[...]
//$csp_salt_query = 'SELECT salt FROM users WHERE username = "%1"';
[...]
$csp_delimiter = '@';
[...]

The complete file looks as follows:

<?php

/**
* SquirrelMail Change SQL Password Plugin
* Copyright (C) 2001-2002 Tyler Akins
* 2002 Thijs Kinkhorst <[email protected]>
* 2002-2005 Paul Lesneiwski <[email protected]>
* This program is licensed under GPL. See COPYING for details
*
* @package plugins
* @subpackage Change SQL Password
*
*/


// Global Variables, don't touch these unless you want to break the plugin
//
global $csp_dsn, $password_update_queries, $lookup_password_query,
$force_change_password_check_query, $password_encryption,
$csp_salt_query, $csp_salt_static, $csp_secure_port,
$csp_non_standard_http_port, $csp_delimiter, $csp_debug,
$min_password_length, $max_password_length, $include_digit_in_password,
$include_uppercase_letter_in_password, $include_lowercase_letter_in_password,
$include_nonalphanumeric_in_password;



// csp_dsn
//
// Theoretically, any SQL database supported by Pear should be supported
// here. The DSN (data source name) must contain the information needed
// to connect to your database backend. A MySQL example is included below.
// For more details about DSN syntax and list of supported database types,
// please see:
// http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.database.db.intro-dsn.php
//
//$csp_dsn = 'mysql://user:[email protected]/email_users';
$csp_dsn = 'mysql://mail_admin:mail_admin_pass[email protected]/mail';


// lookup_password_query
//
// This plugin will always verify the user's old password
// against their login password, but an extra check can also
// be done against the database for more security if you
// desire. If you do not need the extra password check,
// make sure this setting is empty.
//
// This is a query that returns a positive value if a user
// and password pair are found in the database.
//
// This query should return one value (one row, one column), the
// value being ideally a one or a zero, simply indicating that
// the user/password pair does in fact exist in the database.
//
// %1 in this query will be replaced with the full username
// (including domain), such as "[email protected]"
// %2 in this query will be replaced with the username (without
// any domain portion), such as "jose"
// %3 in this query will be replaced with the domain name,
// such as "example.com"
// %4 in this query will be replaced with the current (old)
// password in whatever encryption format is needed per other
// plugin configuration settings (Note that the syntax of
// the password will be provided depending on your encryption
// choices, so you NEVER need to provide quotes around this
// value in the query here.)
// %5 in this query will be replaced with the current (old)
// password in unencrypted plain text. If you do not use any
// password encryption, %4 and %5 will be the same values,
// except %4 will have double quotes around it and %5 will not.
//
//$lookup_password_query = '';
// TERRIBLE SECURITY: $lookup_password_query = 'SELECT count(*) FROM users WHERE username = "%1" AND plain_password = "%5"';
//$lookup_password_query = 'SELECT count(*) FROM users WHERE username = "%1" AND crypt_password = %4';
$lookup_password_query = 'SELECT count(*) FROM users WHERE email = "%1" AND password = %4';


// password_update_queries
//
// An array of SQL queries that will all be executed
// whenever a password change attempt is made.
//
// Any number of queries may be included here.
// The queries will be executed in the order given here.
//
// %1 in all queries will be replaced with the full username
// (including domain), such as "[email protected]"
// %2 in all queries will be replaced with the username (without
// any domain portion), such as "jose"
// %3 in all queries will be replaced with the domain name,
// such as "example.com"
// %4 in all queries will be replaced with the new password
// in whatever encryption format is needed per other
// plugin configuration settings (Note that the syntax of
// the password will be provided depending on your
// encryption choices, so you NEVER need to provide quotes
// around this value in the queries here.)
// %5 in all queries will be replaced with the new password
// in unencrypted plain text - BEWARE! If you do not use
// any password encryption, %4 and %5 will be the same
// values, except %4 will have double quotes around it
// and %5 will not.
//
// $password_update_queries = array(
// 'UPDATE users SET crypt_password = %4 WHERE username = "%1"',
// 'UPDATE user_flags SET force_change_pwd = 0 WHERE username = "%1"',
// 'UPDATE users SET crypt_password = %4, force_change_pwd = 0 WHERE username = "%1"',
// );
$password_update_queries = array('UPDATE users SET password = %4 WHERE email = "%1"');


// force_change_password_check_query
//
// A query that checks for a flag that indicates if a user
// should be forced to change their password. This query
// should return one value (one row, one column) which is
// zero if the user does NOT need to change their password,
// or one if the user should be forced to change it now.
//
// This setting should be an empty string if you do not wish
// to enable this functionality.
//
// %1 in this query will be replaced with the full username
// (including domain), such as "[email protected]"
// %2 in this query will be replaced with the username (without
// any domain portion), such as "jose"
// %3 in this query will be replaced with the domain name,
// such as "example.com"
//
//$force_change_password_check_query = 'SELECT IF(force_change_pwd = "yes", 1, 0) FROM users WHERE username = "%1"';
//$force_change_password_check_query = 'SELECT force_change_pwd FROM users WHERE username = "%1"';
$force_change_password_check_query = '';



// password_encryption
//
// What encryption method do you use to store passwords
// in your database? Please use one of the following,
// exactly as you see it:
//
// NONE Passwords are stored as plain text only
// MYSQLPWD Passwords are stored using the MySQL password() function
// MYSQLENCRYPT Passwords are stored using the MySQL encrypt() function
// PHPCRYPT Passwords are stored using the PHP crypt() function
// MD5CRYPT Passwords are stored using encrypted MD5 algorithm
// MD5 Passwords are stored as MD5 hash
//
//$password_encryption = 'MYSQLPWD';
$password_encryption = 'MYSQLENCRYPT';


// csp_salt_query
// csp_salt_static
//
// Encryption types that need a salt need to know where to get
// that salt. If you have a constant, known salt value, you
// should define it in $csp_salt_static. Otherwise, leave that
// value empty and define a value for the $csp_salt_query.
//
// Leave both values empty if you do not need (or use) salts
// to encrypt your passwords.
//
// The query should return one value (one row, one column) which
// is the salt value for the current user's password. This
// query is ignored if $csp_salt_static is anything but empty.
//
// %1 in this query will be replaced with the full username
// (including domain), such as "[email protected]"
// %2 in this query will be replaced with the username (without
// any domain portion), such as "jose"
// %3 in this query will be replaced with the domain name,
// such as "example.com"
//
//$csp_salt_static = 'LEFT(crypt_password, 2)';
//$csp_salt_static = '"a4"'; // use this format with MYSQLENCRYPT
//$csp_salt_static = '$2$blowsomefish$'; // use this format with PHPCRYPT
//$csp_salt_static = '';
$csp_salt_static = 'LEFT(password, 2)';

//$csp_salt_query = 'SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(crypt_password, '$', 1) FROM users WHERE username = "%1"';
//$csp_salt_query = 'SELECT SUBSTRING(crypt_password, (LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX(crypt_password, '$', 2)) + 2)) FROM users WHERE username = "%1"';
//$csp_salt_query = 'SELECT salt FROM users WHERE username = "%1"';
//$csp_salt_query = '';



// csp_secure_port
//
// You may ensure that SSL encryption is used during password
// change by setting this to the port that your HTTPS is served
// on (443 is typical). Set to zero if you do not wish to force
// an HTTPS connection when users are changing their passwords.
//
// You may override this value for certain domains, users, or
// service levels through the Virtual Host Login (vlogin) plugin
// by setting a value(s) for $vlogin_csp_secure_port in the vlogin
// configuration.
//
$csp_secure_port = 0;
//$csp_secure_port = 443;



// csp_non_standard_http_port
//
// If you serve standard HTTP web requests on a non-standard
// port (anything other than port 80), you should specify that
// port number here. Set to zero otherwise.
//
// You may override this value for certain domains, users, or
// service levels through the Virtual Host Login (vlogin) plugin
// by setting a value(s) for $vlogin_csp_non_standard_http_port
// in the vlogin configuration.
//
//$csp_non_standard_http_port = 8080;
$csp_non_standard_http_port = 0;



// min_password_length
// max_password_length
// include_digit_in_password
// include_uppercase_letter_in_password
// include_lowercase_letter_in_password
// include_nonalphanumeric_in_password
//
// You can set the minimum and maximum password lengths that
// you accept or leave those settings as zero to indicate that
// no limit should be applied.
//
// Turn on any of the other settings here to check that the
// new password contains at least one digit, upper case letter,
// lower case letter and/or one non-alphanumeric character.
//
$min_password_length = 6;
$max_password_length = 0;
$include_digit_in_password = 0;
$include_uppercase_letter_in_password = 0;
$include_lowercase_letter_in_password = 0;
$include_nonalphanumeric_in_password = 0;



// csp_delimiter
//
// if your system has usernames with something other than
// an "@" sign separating the user and domain portion,
// specify that character here
//
//$csp_delimiter = '|';
$csp_delimiter = '@';



// debug mode
//
$csp_debug = 0;



?>

The Change SQL Password plugin also depends on the Compatibility plugin which we install as follows:

cd /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins
wget http://www.squirrelmail.org/countdl.php?fileurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.squirrelmail.org%2Fplugins%2Fcompatibility-2.0.16-1.0.tar.gz
tar xvfz compatibility-2.0.16-1.0.tar.gz

Now we must go into the SquirrelMail configuration and tell SquirrelMail that we use Courier as our POP3 and IMAP server and enable the Change SQL Password and the Compatibility plugins:

/usr/share/squirrelmail/config/conf.pl

You'll see the following menu. Navigate through it as indicated:

SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php (1.4.0)
---------------------------------------------------------
Main Menu --
1.  Organization Preferences
2.  Server Settings
3.  Folder Defaults
4.  General Options
5.  Themes
6.  Address Books
7.  Message of the Day (MOTD)
8.  Plugins
9.  Database
10. Languages

D.  Set pre-defined settings for specific IMAP servers

C   Turn color off
S   Save data
Q   Quit

Command >> <-- D


SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php
---------------------------------------------------------
While we have been building SquirrelMail, we have discovered some
preferences that work better with some servers that don't work so
well with others.  If you select your IMAP server, this option will
set some pre-defined settings for that server.

Please note that you will still need to go through and make sure
everything is correct.  This does not change everything.  There are
only a few settings that this will change.

Please select your IMAP server:
    bincimap    = Binc IMAP server
    courier     = Courier IMAP server
    cyrus       = Cyrus IMAP server
    dovecot     = Dovecot Secure IMAP server
    exchange    = Microsoft Exchange IMAP server
    hmailserver = hMailServer
    macosx      = Mac OS X Mailserver
    mercury32   = Mercury/32
    uw          = University of Washington's IMAP server
    gmail       = IMAP access to Google mail (Gmail) accounts

    quit        = Do not change anything
Command >> <-- courier


              imap_server_type = courier
         default_folder_prefix = INBOX.
                  trash_folder = Trash
                   sent_folder = Sent
                  draft_folder = Drafts
            show_prefix_option = false
          default_sub_of_inbox = false
show_contain_subfolders_option = false
            optional_delimiter = .
                 delete_folder = true

Press enter to continue... <-- ENTER


SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php (1.4.0)
---------------------------------------------------------
Main Menu --
1.  Organization Preferences
2.  Server Settings
3.  Folder Defaults
4.  General Options
5.  Themes
6.  Address Books
7.  Message of the Day (MOTD)
8.  Plugins
9.  Database
10. Languages

D.  Set pre-defined settings for specific IMAP servers

C   Turn color off
S   Save data
Q   Quit

Command >> <-- 8


SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php (1.4.0)
---------------------------------------------------------
Plugins
  Installed Plugins
    1. delete_move_next
    2. squirrelspell
    3. newmail

  Available Plugins:
    4. administrator
    5. bug_report
    6. calendar
    7. change_sqlpass
    8. compatibility
    9. filters
    10. fortune
    11. info
    12. listcommands
    13. mail_fetch
    14. message_details
    15. sent_subfolders
    16. spamcop
    17. test
    18. translate

R   Return to Main Menu
C   Turn color off
S   Save data
Q   Quit

Command >> <-- 8 (or whatever number the compatibility plugin has - it's needed by the change_sqlpass plugin)


SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php (1.4.0)
---------------------------------------------------------
Plugins
  Installed Plugins
    1. delete_move_next
    2. squirrelspell
    3. newmail
    4. compatibility

  Available Plugins:
    5. administrator
    6. bug_report
    7. calendar
    8. change_sqlpass
    9. filters
    10. fortune
    11. info
    12. listcommands
    13. mail_fetch
    14. message_details
    15. sent_subfolders
    16. spamcop
    17. test
    18. translate

R   Return to Main Menu
C   Turn color off
S   Save data
Q   Quit

Command >> <-- 8 (the number of the change_sqlpass plugin)


SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php (1.4.0)
---------------------------------------------------------
Plugins
  Installed Plugins
    1. delete_move_next
    2. squirrelspell
    3. newmail
    4. compatibility
    5. change_sqlpass

  Available Plugins:
    6. administrator
    7. bug_report
    8. calendar
    9. filters
    10. fortune
    11. info
    12. listcommands
    13. mail_fetch
    14. message_details
    15. sent_subfolders
    16. spamcop
    17. test
    18. translate

R   Return to Main Menu
C   Turn color off
S   Save data
Q   Quit

Command >> <-- S


SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php (1.4.0)
---------------------------------------------------------
Plugins
  Installed Plugins
    1. delete_move_next
    2. squirrelspell
    3. newmail
    4. compatibility
    5. change_sqlpass

  Available Plugins:
    6. administrator
    7. bug_report
    8. calendar
    9. filters
    10. fortune
    11. info
    12. listcommands
    13. mail_fetch
    14. message_details
    15. sent_subfolders
    16. spamcop
    17. test
    18. translate

R   Return to Main Menu
C   Turn color off
S   Save data
Q   Quit

Command >> S

Data saved in config.php
Press enter to continue... <-- ENTER


SquirrelMail Configuration : Read: config.php (1.4.0)
---------------------------------------------------------
Plugins
  Installed Plugins
    1. delete_move_next
    2. squirrelspell
    3. newmail
    4. compatibility
    5. change_sqlpass

  Available Plugins:
    6. administrator
    7. bug_report
    8. calendar
    9. filters
    10. fortune
    11. info
    12. listcommands
    13. mail_fetch
    14. message_details
    15. sent_subfolders
    16. spamcop
    17. test
    18. translate

R   Return to Main Menu
C   Turn color off
S   Save data
Q   Quit

Command >> <-- Q

One last thing we need to do is modify the file /etc/squirrelmail/config_local.php and comment out the $default_folder_prefix variable - if you don't do this, you will see the following error message in SquirrelMail after you've logged in: Query: CREATE "Sent" Reason Given: Invalid mailbox name.

vi /etc/squirrelmail/config_local.php
<?php

/**
* Local config overrides.
*
* You can override the config.php settings here.
* Don't do it unless you know what you're doing.
* Use standard PHP syntax, see config.php for examples.
*
* @copyright &copy; 2002-2006 The SquirrelMail Project Team
* @license http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php GNU Public License
* @version $Id$
* @package squirrelmail
* @subpackage config
*/

//$default_folder_prefix = '';
?>

Now you can type in http://server1.example.com/webmail or http://192.168.0.100/webmail in your browser to access SquirrelMail.

Log in with your email address (e.g. [email protected]) and your password:

You should find the welcome email in your inbox:

To change your password, go to Options and then select Change Password:

Type in your current password and then your new password twice:

After you've changed the password, you will have to immediately log in again with the new password:

 

19 VMA (Virtual Mail Admin Interface)

Virtual Mail Admin (VMA) is a small PHP-based web app written to manage the email system set up in this guide. I didn't test it, but I thought I'd share.

This is what the developer (Charl Loubser) wrote to me in an email:

"Hi There,

I don't know if you'll like this, or if this has any use to you, but I thought I'd Share:

I wrote a silly little webapp for the setup you did in the Howto: https://www.howtoforge.com/virtual-users-domains-postfix-courier-mysql-squirrelmail-ubuntu-10.04

If you approve and think it worthy of sharing on your tutorial, you are more than welcome, and can feel free to do so.

As mentioned in the readme, this is not a perfect app, but it does the job for now, and I'd thing it's relatively safe in a closed environment (LAN setup between servers).

The rar file with the app is attached, but can also be downloaded at : http://code.google.com/p/vma/"

 

20 References

Tutorial: ISP-style Email Service with Debian-Sarge and Postfix 2.1: http://workaround.org/articles/ispmail-sarge/

Postfix + Quota: http://vhcs.net/new/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=3496&forum=17

Mail Passwords Encrypted using saslauthd: http://www.syscp.de/docs/public/contrib/cryptedmailpws

 

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10 Comment(s)

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Comments

By: Samuel Vera

error 

los log del mailog

chdir example.com/sales/: No such file or directory

May 29 11:49:47 server1 imapd: [email protected]: No such file or directory

ERROR: Connection dropped by IMAP server

 

 

pliss help

By:

error squirrelmail Submitted by Samuel Vera (not registered) on Wed, 2013-05-29 23:03. error los log del mailog chdir example.com/sales/: No such file or directory May 29 11:49:47 server1 imapd: [email protected]: No such file or directory ERROR: Connection dropped by IMAP server pliss help

By: Anonymous

hi, i have the same issue with your email server Connection drop by IMAP server, how's your email server, did you solve the problem? how can i fix it? thanks

By: deny yulianto

If you had an error like ERROR: Connection dropped by IMAP server when you log into you squirrelmail and you check on your email log you found something like this>>>> chdir example.com/sales/: No such file or directory server1 imapd: [email protected]: No such file or directory. DONT DO THIS >>> INSERT INTO `transport` (`domain`, `transport`) VALUES ('example.com', 'smtp:mail.example.com'); If you do that, your email will loopback by sending your email into your linux system user that used mailx for send the message. Your mail will be delivered to /var/spool/mail/your_user_name. try to vi /var/spool/mail/your_user_name to check your mail that was looped back. The solution is DROP your 'transport' table values on your mail database. Then your mail server should be okay.

By: Anonymous

hi all, I followed all the tutorial regarding this postfix mail server configuration. Everything was going fine. But at last when i logged into the squirrelmail page, previously there was error like "Error: Connection Drop by IMAP server" so, i drop the 'transport' table values. But now, when i logged into the squirrelmail, a blank page appear with no data. Please guys help me. I cannot find the solution.

By: Anonymous

hi all, I have following this tutorial for mail server configuration. Everything was working fine.But finally when i logged in to the squirrel mail, previously there was error like "Error: Connection Drop by IMAP server" and i drop the 'transport' table values and again try to logged in to the squirrel, the IMAP error message is gone but there is no data on squirrel mail page. Guys please help.

the log message when i logged into the squirrel mail home page is following:

tail -f /var/log/maillog

Dec 5 11:23:26 mail imapd: Connection, ip=[::ffff:127.0.0.1] Dec 5 11:23:26 mail imapd: LOGIN, [email protected], ip=[::ffff:127.0.0.1], port=[33857], protocol=IMAP

Dec 5 11:23:26 mail imapd: LOGOUT, [email protected], ip=[::ffff:127.0.0.1], headers=0, body=0, rcvd=30, sent=238, time=0 Dec 5 11:23:46 mail clamd[1839]: SelfCheck: Database status OK.

By: Hadi


Any one will follow this tutorial will have a problem: Connection dropped by IMAP

 The Solution ( if you have the user : admin @ example.com )

create the directory example.com in "/home/vmail"

 then create the user admin mailbox:

 maildirmake  /home/vmail/example.com/admin

 chown vmail.vmail -R /home/vmail/example.com

 

By: admin

The Mailbox gets xreated automatically by postfix when the first email arrives. Thats why the guide contains instructions to send a mail to the Mailbox first before you use it.

By: waters

Are there any plans to do a CentOS 7.x version of this tutorial? I've been running the CentOS 5 version for years (thank you for that!!) and its time to do an upgrade and migrate everything, but with Centos 6 EOL only 2 years away it would be amazing to get a Centos 7 version so we don't have to worry about this again until 2024.  

By: till

Yes, we plan to write a new version of this guide for CentOS 7, but probably we will use dovecot instead of courier as it is more common these days. If you are seeking for an easy to use virtual mail server you might want to consider to install ISPConfig 3 on CentOS 7, the setup with ISPConfig 3 is a virtual mail user setup based on postfix and dovecot incl quota and spam filtering similar to this guide here with the additional benefit of using the iSPConfig UI instead of having to use phpmyadmin to add mail users. https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/perfect-server-centos-7-apache-mysql-php-pureftpd-postfix-dovecot-and-ispconfig/