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A32
 Post subject: Postfix + Virtual
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:38 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 16, 2007 12:46 am
Posts: 71
Hi,

I have been trying to implement something like this setup: http://www.postfix.org/VIRTUAL_README.h ... al_mailbox

However, although the mail is reported to have gone through on my side, the log shows this:

Quote:
May 16 20:01:22 li17-127 postfix/virtual[5556]: 31591B7EF: to=<me@mydomain.com>, relay=virtual, delay=0.14, delays=0.12/0/0/0.02, dsn=4.2.0, status=deferred (delivery failed to mailbox /home/owner/mail/mydomain.com/me: cannot open file: Permission denied)


in my main.cf I have added:
Quote:
local_transport = virtual
local_recipient_maps = $virtual_mailbox_maps


and
Quote:
virtual_mailbox_domains = mydomain.com
virtual_mailbox_base = /home/owner/mail
virtual_mailbox_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual_mailboxes
virtual_minimum_uid = 100
virtual_uid_maps = static:5000
virtual_gid_maps = static:5000


in /etc/postfix/virtual_mailboxes I have:
Quote:
me@mydomain.com mydomain.com/me

and then of course, postmap /etc/postfix/virtual_mailboxes

From the error message it looks like I've not set the virtual_minimum_uid improperly. I set it to 0 and the logs looked as though everything went fine but nothing showed up in the /home/mail/mydomain.com/me directory.

This is my first time trying to set up a VPS without a CP and I've done okay as far as lighttpd, vsftpd & bind but this one is really kicking my butt.

Help!
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kangaby
 Post subject: Re: Postfix + Virtual
PostPosted: Wed May 16, 2007 11:02 pm 
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Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:55 am
Posts: 120
A32 wrote:

virtual_mailbox_domains = mydomain.com
virtual_mailbox_base = /home/owner/mail
virtual_mailbox_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual_mailboxes
virtual_minimum_uid = 100
virtual_uid_maps = static:5000
virtual_gid_maps = static:5000


The problem is most likely that the static:5000 uid and gid above are not allowed to access the /home/owner/mail directory.

You need to specify files for the uid and gid maps and place the uid and gid for the owner of /home/owner/mail into these files.

I've done this recently but don't have the info at hand as I'm at work. I think I found how to do it by searching uid_maps or the like on google. I think the format is along the lines of:

owner@mydomain.xxx 1000
other@mydomain.xxx 1001

etc.
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A32
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2007 1:03 am 
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Joined: Wed May 16, 2007 12:46 am
Posts: 71
Whew.. that was a toughie!

I ended up changing the directories around (/var/spool/postfix/virtual) and changed the uid and gid to the postfix uid and gid respectively.

So to change from /var/spool/postfix/virtual to something more appealing I think I would:

A.
1. change virtual_mailbox_base = /some/path
2. chown that path to postfix.postfix?
3. keep the virtual_uid_maps: static:103 virtual_gid_maps: static:105

-or-

B.
1. change virtual_mailbox_base = /some/path
2. create a user, say, themailman
3. chown /some/path to themailman
4. set virtual_uid_maps and virtual_gid_maps respective to the id/group of themailman


One thing I'm confused about.. N00b alert - If postfix is chrooted by default like I've been reading, how does it access dirs outside the jail like /home/mail or whatever?

Thanks.
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kangaby
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2007 5:29 am 
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Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:55 am
Posts: 120
The following assumes your using Dovecot SMTP Auth and a version of Postfix that supports it. > 2.3 (I think)

Create a virtual mail user, make the directory for the virtual mail, and make it owned by the vmail account.

Code:
groupadd -g 5000 vmail
useradd -m -u 5000 -g 5000 -s /bin/bash vmail
mkdir /var/mail/vmail
chown vmail:vmail /var/mail/vmail


/etc/postfix/main.cf
Code:
# DELIVERY TO MAILBOX
#
# The home_mailbox parameter specifies the optional pathname of a
# mailbox file relative to a user's home directory. The default
# mailbox file is /var/spool/mail/user or /var/mail/user.  Specify
# "Maildir/" for qmail-style delivery (the / is required).
#
home_mailbox = Maildir/

# Virtual mail users
virtual_mailbox_base = /var/mail/vmail
virtual_mailbox_domains = /etc/postfix/virtual/vdomains.txt
virtual_mailbox_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual/vmailboxes.txt
virtual_minimum_uid = 1000
virtual_uid_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual/vuid.txt
virtual_gid_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual/vgid.txt
virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual/valias.txt


The "home_mailbox = Maildir/" above allows both local and virtual users to work without permission problems.

Local mails are in: /home/user/Maildir
Virtual mails are in: /var/mail/vmail/domain.xxx/user/Maildir/

/etc/postfix/virtual/domains
Code:
domain.xxx


xxx above can be com / org / net or whatever you own.

/etc/postfix/virtual/domains/domain.xxx
Code:
# Maildir mail addresses for domain.xxx
user1@domain.xxx   domain.xxx/user1/Maildir/
user2@domain.xxx   domain.xxx/user2/Maildir/

# Comment out the entry below to implement a catch-all.
# @domain.xxx      domain


/etc/postfix/virtual/uids/domain
Code:
# Domains owned by local user domain (uid/gid) 1000:1000
#@domain.com 1000
@domain.xxx 5000
#@domain.net 1000
#@domain.org 1000


The 1000's above are part of an incomplete experiment to move virtual mail to the local system owner of the virtual domain from:

/var/mail/vmail/domain.xxx
to
/home/localuser/Maildir/domain.xxx/user/Maildir

/etc/postfix/build-mail.sh
Code:
#!/bin/sh

# Create the list of domains
ls /etc/postfix/virtual/domains > /etc/postfix/virtual/vdomains.txt

# Create the virtual mailboxes
cat /etc/postfix/virtual/domains/* > /etc/postfix/virtual/vmailboxes.txt
postmap /etc/postfix/virtual/vmailboxes.txt

# Create the virtual aliases
cat /etc/postfix/virtual/aliases/* > /etc/postfix/virtual/valiases.txt
postmap /etc/postfix/virtual/valiases.txt

# Create the list of domain uids
cat /etc/postfix/virtual/uids/* > /etc/postfix/virtual/vuid.txt
postmap /etc/postfix/virtual/vuid.txt

# Create the list of domain gids
cat /etc/postfix/virtual/uids/* > /etc/postfix/virtual/vgid.txt
postmap /etc/postfix/virtual/vgid.txt

# The final step is to create the mailboxes for the users.
# Thanks to the magic of permissions this will happen auto-magically when the account first gets mail


The above is a quick build and postmap all the files.
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kangaby
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2007 7:12 am 
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Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:55 am
Posts: 120
A32 wrote:
One thing I'm confused about.. N00b alert - If postfix is chrooted by default like I've been reading, how does it access dirs outside the jail like /home/mail or whatever?


It can get to the stuff in /var/mail for local users because it has the group mail. It can get to the stuff in vmail because the virtual uid and gid maps match the uid and gid of the vmail user (5000) and you told postfix to use that to deliver virtual mails.

It can't get to /home/localuser/Maildir directly, but there is some magic (which I don't understand) that allows the mails to be placed there after postfix accepts them.

Getting virtual mails to turn up in /home/localuser/Maildir/domain.xxx/* is something I haven't cracked yet. Probably because I don't really understand how it all works.


Last edited by kangaby on Thu May 17, 2007 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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A32
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2007 1:19 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 16, 2007 12:46 am
Posts: 71
I believe I have a decent grasp of how it works now. Thanks very much for all your help!
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mvandemar
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:30 am 
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Senior Newbie

Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:22 am
Posts: 5
kangaby wrote:
The following assumes your using Dovecot SMTP Auth and a version of Postfix that supports it. > 2.3 (I think)

Create a virtual mail user, make the directory for the virtual mail, and make it owned by the vmail account.

Code:
groupadd -g 5000 vmail
useradd -m -u 5000 -g 5000 -s /bin/bash vmail
mkdir /var/mail/vmail
chown vmail:vmail /var/mail/vmail



Hello all. :)

Ok, so I thought I was finally getting a grasp on how to do this (and why I was doing the steps I needed to do) thanks to this thread and the Postfix Virtual Readme, but when I got the the 3rd step above (mkdir /var/mail/vmail), it failed:
Code:
mkdir: cannot create directory `/var/mail/vmail': File exists


Apparently when I created the user it added a blank file named vmail in my /var/spool/mail directory (which is an alias of /var/mail on my box).

Any ideas?

Thanks. :D

I should let you guys know that I am still learning my way around Linux and fairly newbie-ish.

-Michael
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CybrMatt
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 10:10 am 
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Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:40 am
Posts: 43
mvandemar wrote:
kangaby wrote:
The following assumes your using Dovecot SMTP Auth and a version of Postfix that supports it. > 2.3 (I think)

Create a virtual mail user, make the directory for the virtual mail, and make it owned by the vmail account.

Code:
groupadd -g 5000 vmail
useradd -m -u 5000 -g 5000 -s /bin/bash vmail
mkdir /var/mail/vmail
chown vmail:vmail /var/mail/vmail



Hello all. :)

Ok, so I thought I was finally getting a grasp on how to do this (and why I was doing the steps I needed to do) thanks to this thread and the Postfix Virtual Readme, but when I got the the 3rd step above (mkdir /var/mail/vmail), it failed:
Code:
mkdir: cannot create directory `/var/mail/vmail': File exists


Apparently when I created the user it added a blank file named vmail in my /var/spool/mail directory (which is an alias of /var/mail on my box).

Any ideas?


Yeah, when you create the user in the manner specified, it will create a mailbox for that user as if it were a person. That's really got nothing to do with the server setup itself; I'd simply pick a different location for your mail directory. I definitely recommend looking through the postfix documentation above if you haven't already.

mvandemar wrote:
I should let you guys know that I am still learning my way around Linux and fairly newbie-ish.

-Michael


You certainly picked a difficult way to get up to speed... Mail servers can be among the most complicated daemons to (correctly) configure on linux. Don't get discouraged.
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mvandemar
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:27 am 
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Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:22 am
Posts: 5
CybrMatt wrote:
mvandemar wrote:
I should let you guys know that I am still learning my way around Linux and fairly newbie-ish.

-Michael


You certainly picked a difficult way to get up to speed... Mail servers can be among the most complicated daemons to (correctly) configure on linux. Don't get discouraged.


Thanks, I won't. :D

CybrMatt wrote:
mvandemar wrote:
kangaby wrote:
The following assumes your using Dovecot SMTP Auth and a version of Postfix that supports it. > 2.3 (I think)

Create a virtual mail user, make the directory for the virtual mail, and make it owned by the vmail account.

Code:
groupadd -g 5000 vmail
useradd -m -u 5000 -g 5000 -s /bin/bash vmail
mkdir /var/mail/vmail
chown vmail:vmail /var/mail/vmail



Hello all. :)

Ok, so I thought I was finally getting a grasp on how to do this (and why I was doing the steps I needed to do) thanks to this thread and the Postfix Virtual Readme, but when I got the the 3rd step above (mkdir /var/mail/vmail), it failed:
Code:
mkdir: cannot create directory `/var/mail/vmail': File exists


Apparently when I created the user it added a blank file named vmail in my /var/spool/mail directory (which is an alias of /var/mail on my box).

Any ideas?


Yeah, when you create the user in the manner specified, it will create a mailbox for that user as if it were a person.


See, and that's the problem with all of the walkthroughs I've found so far... either they assume that you have knowledge that you might not, or they have minor issues like this one, where following it like a recipe simply won't work all the way through, or (like most) they toss in a whole bunch of config options/flags without saying what they mean. Getting there slowly though. :)

Question though, when you say, "create the user in the manner specified", I didn't see an option to create a user without creating a mailbox on the useradd man page... is there another way to add a user then?

CybrMatt wrote:
That's really got nothing to do with the server setup itself; I'd simply pick a different location for your mail directory.


That I can do. :)


CybrMatt wrote:
I definitely recommend looking through the postfix documentation above if you haven't already.


I have, thanks, bookmarked it and keep referring back to it as I go. Only one site on the server gets mail, and it's a non-critical one, so no rush with it.

-Michael
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CybrMatt
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:32 pm 
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Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:40 am
Posts: 43
mvandemar wrote:
See, and that's the problem with all of the walkthroughs I've found so far... either they assume that you have knowledge that you might not, or they have minor issues like this one, where following it like a recipe simply won't work all the way through, or (like most) they toss in a whole bunch of config options/flags without saying what they mean. Getting there slowly though. :)

Question though, when you say, "create the user in the manner specified", I didn't see an option to create a user without creating a mailbox on the useradd man page... is there another way to add a user then?


It's not really anything to worry about; it's normal for local user accounts to be able to receive mail locally. You can use any mail program (like mailx or mutt) to send mail to a local user account:

$ mailx vmail
subject: hi
body...

.

And it will deliver it to the user's mail file. If the file doesn't exit, the system will create it. They're usually in /var/mail or /var/spool/mail by default. The files hold the messages in plain text, so you can just open them and read what's inside.

If you're setting up a virtual domain though, it's usually completely unrelated to the local system accounts.
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mvandemar
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 3:52 pm 
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Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 3:22 am
Posts: 5
CybrMatt wrote:
If you're setting up a virtual domain though, it's usually completely unrelated to the local system accounts.


Hm. Ok, in the following snippet from this document:

Postfix website wrote:
Postfix Postfix virtual MAILBOX example: separate domains, non-UNIX accounts

{snip}
Here is an example of a virtual mailbox domain "example.com":
Code:
     1 /etc/postfix/main.cf:
     2     virtual_mailbox_domains = example.com ...more domains...
     3     virtual_mailbox_base = /var/mail/vhosts
     4     virtual_mailbox_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/vmailbox
     5     virtual_minimum_uid = 100
     6     virtual_uid_maps = static:5000
     7     virtual_gid_maps = static:5000
     8     virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual

{snip}
    Lines 6, 7: The virtual_uid_maps and virtual_gid_maps parameters specify that all the virtual mailboxes are owned by a fixed uid and gid 5000. If this is not what you want, specify lookup tables that are searched by the recipient's mail address.


I am assuming that is where A32 got the original code he posted, and it does seem like it would be a simplification of things if all of the virtual mailboxes had a single owner for delivery purposes.

That static account does have to be a system account though, correct? And it can't have the same name as the folder where the mail is then stored? That's why in the example they chose "vhosts" for the directory and the descriptive yet arbitrary name of "static" for the user...?

-Michael
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kangaby
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 6:03 am 
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Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:55 am
Posts: 120
CybrMatt wrote:
Yeah, when you create the user in the manner specified, it will create a mailbox for that user as if it were a person.

I'm sure when I did this it created a vmail user in the home directory, and as long as you never send local user vmail any mail, it doesn't create a directory in /var/mail

mvandemar wrote:
See, and that's the problem with all of the walkthroughs I've found so far... either they assume that you have knowledge that you might not, or they have minor issues like this one, where following it like a recipe simply won't work all the way through, or (like most) they toss in a whole bunch of config options/flags without saying what they mean. Getting there slowly though. :)

Have a look at this one.
http://www.linode.com/wiki/index.php/Us ... ail_Server

Might / might not help.
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kangaby
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 6:12 am 
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Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:55 am
Posts: 120
Static is not the user. It means static i.e. not dynamic.

The 5000 references the user id 5000 in the password file and the group id 5000 in the groups file. The 5000 was assigned as part of the useradd command. It could be any number you want, as long as it's not already used by the system. (higher the better, as normal users start around 100 or is it 1000 and go up from there.
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mvandemar
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 9:45 pm 
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Posts: 5
Thanks kangaby. :)

If sendmail was handling the system messages before (like sending root notices after a cron job), will Postfix do that by default? I just disable sendmail altogether, right?

-Michael
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kangaby
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 9:47 pm 
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Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:55 am
Posts: 120
Generally, when you install postfix, it will remove sendmail.

There will still be some sendmail references from memory, (can't remember what exactly) but this is to allow applications that only know about sendmail to send mail through postfix.

Yes, postfix can send local (root) and virtual emails in the same setup if you configure it for both.
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