Linux Mail Server Setup and Howto Guide

I have 12 domain names pointing to the same server. I host all websites by using the virtual host feature in Apache.

My goal is to set up a mail server that would allow each website would have its own dedicated email address.

I followed the tutorials on the home page of this site specifically the sections "How to install SMTP, POP3, IMAP and Webmail service", "How to integrate MySQL or support multiple domains", and How  to install Webmin.

Say for example I have domain1.com, and domain2.com

…and email adresses user@domain1.com and user@domain2.com

If I send an email to user1@domain1.com it goes into the vmail directory.

If I send an email to user2@domain2.com it also goes into the vmail directory.

When I try to read the email that was received on my system it reads from the user, or user2 accounts, and not the vmail accounts.

All my email is filed under /home/vmail/domain/user/Maildir

But when I try to access my mail via Squirrelmail, Webmin, or any other mail reader it reads from /home/user1 or /home/user2 instead of reading from vmail

Does anyone have any suggestions as how to solve this?

I want them to go to different addresses.

The problem is that when I receive an email it is delivered into the right mailbox (under vmail), but when i try to retrieve an email is tries to retrieve it from the users mailbox in /home/user (not /home/vmail/domain/user)

I changed the mail_location setting as you advised and I got this following error in maillog:

Sep 29 14:39:42 localhost dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<chris>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:127.0.0.1, lip=::ffff:127.0.0.1, securedSep 29 14:39:42 localhost dovecot: IMAP(chris): mkdir(/var/vmail//chris/Maildir/cur) failed: Permission deniedSep 29 14:39:42 localhost dovecot: IMAP(chris): mkdir(/var/vmail//chris/Maildir/cur) failed: Permission deniedSep 29 14:39:42 localhost dovecot: IMAP(chris): Disconnected: Logged out

When mail is received it is correctly filed by postfix in those folders. If I manually look into these folders I notice the mail is being receives, but I don't understand why dovecot is having trouble retrieving these files?

Any suggestions how to fix this permission issue? or underlying issue?

Post edited 9:17 am – September 30, 2010 by Kendermin

chris said:

Kendermin said:

I looks like a permission issue… root access needed perhaps? shouldn't those folders exist from postfix? 

On clue: It seems the %d parameter is empty. Is there any way to configure it so that %d returns the domain name?

 

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http://workaround.org/book/exp…..rt/html/60

this might help espically at the end.

"Before you send a first test email you will need to fix file system permissions for the

/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf file so that the vmail user can access the Dovecot configuration.

The reason is that Postfix starts the delivery agent with vmail permissions.

$> chgrp vmail /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
$> chmod g+r /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf"

Sorry if I am not much help.  I would love to set up a test system on my end to 

test these prior to giving you these codes but I can't even get post fix to send mail to

anything else other then root.  And of course dovecot is hardcoded not to allow root to

look up mail.