Howto: setup a mail server in Ubuntu

[caeserjk]

I have followed the direction on just getting the mail server setup. I have create the users in the maildb tables and mail sent to them will go in the virtual folders. For some reason I cannot use an imap client to check the mail, it will not authenticate the users. Wonder if there is some way which I can check to see if the users are able to login.

I am currently trying to use evolution.

P.s. Newb here.

[flurdy]

Turn debug on in courier's imap file and tail the syslog.
Further enable query logging in mysql and tail mysql's log file as well.

For more details see the testing chapter of my howto.

[brolewis]

Holy Cow! This is an excellent reference! I have been trying for over a month to get my email server up and running and I got it working in only 2 days better than I was trying to do. Thanks a TON!

[anthonysales]

i followed all the directions...when i do a squirrelmail configtest, everything goes well..my configuration seems to be ok! but when i try to login, i always get an unknown user and password error! is mysql the only way to add users to the database?! or is there any other easier way? i've been trying to set this up for 2 days, and no luck! is it because the "Current user:" is mail@localhost in my mysql database? the rest of my settings are set at "mail@anthonysales.org" if this is the problem, how do i change the "Current user:"?? thanks in advance for the replies!=)

[flurdy]

i followed all the directions...when i do a squirrelmail configtest, everything goes well..my configuration seems to be ok! but when i try to login, i always get an unknown user and password error! is mysql the only way to add users to the database?! or is there any other easier way? i've been trying to set this up for 2 days, and no luck! is it because the "Current user:" is mail@localhost in my mysql database? the rest of my settings are set at "mail@anthonysales.org" if this is the problem, how do i change the "Current user:"?? thanks in advance for the replies!=)

As usual with debugging this is a step by step issue.
First of all does postfix work okay? if u send mail from the outside does it create folders and files in /var/spool/mail/virtual corresponding to your users table settings?

If postfix is fine then do general imap access work ok ?

Finally if all the others work we can get to squirrelmail and your specific questions.

Is MySQL the only way to add users? Well you can use a plethero of free admin packages to do this, however I think they all require the system to be set up in a specific way. And in the end they all have to be in put into the MySQL database. You can enable local users outside of the database, but I prefer not to use that hence not in the howto. In the end how many and how often are you going to add users? If loads then just set up a simple web page to insert it into the db via jsp, perl , php etc.

Not sure I understand what you mean by "Current User", and how it relates to your email address.
You have a username to log in to the database, but that has nothing to do with you email user ids. It only relates to database access, not what is specified in the alias and users table. The database username is what you specify in the mysql*.cf in the postfix folder, and in the courier config and also in the squirrelmail config. You send email to and log into the imap server and log into the webmail with the email address you have added to you users table.

My advice is to turn on mysql debugging and tail that log to find out what actually happens.

[oberon]

First I just wana say thanks for the great guide! One thing though... when entering data into the maildb I am getting errors:

mysql> INSERT INTO domains (domain) VALUES
-> ('localhost'),
-> ('localhost.localdomain');
ERROR 1062: Duplicate entry '0' for key 1

I have checked the syntax and can't seem to get pas this. I also tried inserting the rows in PHPMyadmin with the same results.

Thanks,

oberon

[flurdy]

First I just wana say thanks for the great guide! One thing though... when entering data into the maildb I am getting errors:



I have checked the syntax and can't seem to get pas this. I also tried inserting the rows in PHPMyadmin with the same results.

Thanks,

oberon

the error indicates the domain already exist in the table.
check with
select * from domains where domain like 'local%'

[oberon]

the error indicates the domain already exist in the table.
check with
select * from domains where domain like 'local%'

Actually it was my bad... forgot to set the auto_increment on the PKID colum. Oops.

[anthonysales]

whenever i try to start postfix... i get this in my mail.info log

localhost postfix/qmgr[9914]: 199703AC50F: to=<root@localhost.localdomain>, orig_to=<root>, relay=none, delay=55163, status=deferred (delivery temporarily suspended: address resolver failure)

i haven't added spamassasin,amavisd or clamav yet..i'm just testing my mail server to see if it works.. any suggestions?! hehe..=)

[Rodrigo]

thank you Oh, thank you!