Basic Postfix Email Gateway on Ubuntu 10.04

If you actually need your emails to be delivered, I would look into the SaaS options for email. I spent months trying to configure my system to get delivery to yahoo and aol. It never worked. A yahoo rep frankly told me that they only deliver emails from large, established players.

Look into Amazon's SES. It's new, looks pretty awesome, and is CHEAP. I predict they will put most of the other players out of business.

@grevan:

*Do i make up my system mail name? or is the same FQDN i created in /etc/hosts ? The documentation confused me?

*Do i need to set the reverse DNS for my linode´s IP to the system mail name?

Whatever you have set as the reverse DNS for your IP is what you should use for the system mail name.

@deadwalrus:

A yahoo rep frankly told me that they only deliver emails from large, established players.
Even mail from quite large organisations who do not have Yahoo's blessing fail to get through – so Yahoo are, in effect, useless as a mail provider.

Thanks guys. I don´t want to host any emails, i just want to get my site working, and it needs to send confirmation emails to users.

Do you think postfix is the right way to go?

Yes postfix is fine, for you FQDN and rDNS set it to whatever is in /etc/hostname

My FQDN is 'grevan.domain.com'.

In postfix configuration i set 'grevan.domain.com' as my system mail name. Then i went to set reverse DNS - In "Perform a forward lookup" a put 'grevan.domain.com', but > No match was found for 'grevan'. Reverse DNS must have a matching forward entry that points to one of your IPs

How do i set reverse dns?

Thanks

I figured it out that i can only set the reverse DSN to a domain i created a domain zone for.

But, then, do i have to create a domain zone for 'grevan.domain.com' and use it in the reverse DNS?

In the zone for domain.com you want to create an A record for grevan and give it the IP address of your linode. See http://library.linode.com/dns-guides/co … de-manager">http://library.linode.com/dns-guides/configuring-dns-with-the-linode-manager

Once that has had a chance to update you will be able to set your reverse DNS to that name.

Thanks Stever, that help me.

Reading the socialengine script documentation it says:
> Linux Server

The sendmail path may be incorrectly configured (php.ini - sendmail_path). Consult with your host to insure that this directive has been set properly.

Do you think i need only to make this path correct (it´s commented, disable, in my php.ini), but i think i need to install postfix either. Do you think?

You do need to install postfix to send email, postfix provides the sendmail functionality, you may need to modify your sendmail path afterwards but probably not, I didn't need to.

Thanks obs.

So recapitulating:

1. Install postfix

2. Configure on postfix my system mail name to "grevan.domain.com"

3. Create a DNS zone to "domain.com", add an A Record "grevan.domain.com"

4. Set the reverse DNS to "grevan.domain.com" (still can´t set the reverse DNS, maybe the A record is not resolved…)

• I´m actually using "domain.com", do i have to use my real domain name?

Is that it so far?

Thanks guys

After reloading postfix i get this:

> postfix/postfix-script: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

@grevan:

Thanks guys. I don´t want to host any emails, i just want to get my site working, and it needs to send confirmation emails to users.

Do you think postfix is the right way to go?

Like I said, it depends on if you want your people to actually receive your confirmation emails. If they are using yahoo, they won't. You can get around this sometimes by telling them on the confirmation page that if they don't receive your emails to check their spam folders. Users often don't, though.

That being said, my setup uses postfix unless it detects a yahoo or aol email address, in which case it smpt's to gmail to send using their services (I have a google apps account).

To gain delivery to hotmail and live you also need to configure domainkeys and Microsoft's ID service (I forget what it is called at the moment).

Honestly, if I had to to it again I would just send everything via smtp to gmail and setup Amazon SES if I needed to send out over 500 per day. And actually, when I get some spare time I am going to move over that way anyways. Rolling your own is just asking for punishment and frustration – if you actually care about having your emails delivered, that is.

@grevan:

• I´m actually using "domain.com", do i have to use my real domain name?

You have to use a real domain to set your reverse DNS.

@deadwalrus:

Like I said, it depends on if you want your people to actually receive your confirmation emails. If they are using yahoo, they won't. You can get around this sometimes by telling them on the confirmation page that if they don't receive your emails to check their spam folders. Users often don't, though.

My postfix sends to yahoo fine :/

My postfix sends fine to Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, you name it.

I think mileage varies…

From various forum posts over time, it seems like it's a bit hit or miss. Some people have no problems and others have tons of problems, even with correct mail server DNS information, setting up SPF or specific processes for the target service. Yahoo and Hotmail seem to be the most likely to bounce or declare mail as spam.

I've certainly seen posts by folks who appear to have done everything right and still have problems that if I were trying to set it up, I might well be cautious enough to try to use some other service before running my own.

-- David

You guys are lucky. do you have a secret to your sucess? It might be that your IPs somehow got whitelisted (maybe by the former IP holder?).

Back when I was trying to get the kinks worked out, I had a conversation with a yahoo rep. He confirmed that my email was properly configured, and that I was not blacklisted, but that the problem was they use a "whitelist" which my IP was not on. I asked how I could get on there, and he basically told me I couldn't.

I have no problems with gmail, hotmail or live. Most small providers accept my emails. I have never gotten them to work with yahoo though. Directly to spam every. single. time. I have both domainkeys and dkim running, reverse DNS, SPF, you name it. I finally gave up.

Also, regarding Yahoo using a "whitelist" to deliver email. WTF kind of a backasswards policy is that?? Did someone throw their hands up and say, "This spam problem is hard – let's give up?" (And yes, in case it is not apparent, Yahoo's process left me a bit jaded with them.)

I did have some issue with hotmail and yahoo wayyyyy back when, my emails are normally account verification emails, I found that by stripping the http:// part from a link it stopped emails going to spam, why? No idea and does it matter, not really since most if not all email clients will make the address a link without the http://

I´m getting this error message:

• Reloading Postfix configuration… postfix/postfix-script: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

what does tail /var/log/mail.log say?

Feb 22 20:30:08 li157-51 postfix/postfix-script[21110]: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

Feb 23 16:37:20 li157-51 postfix/master[24780]: fatal: bind 0.0.0.0 port 25: Add ress already in use

Feb 23 16:40:38 li157-51 postfix/master[25240]: fatal: bind 0.0.0.0 port 25: Add ress already in use

Feb 23 16:43:07 li157-51 postfix/postfix-script[25259]: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

Feb 24 13:43:06 li157-51 sendmail[27059]: alias database /etc/mail/aliases rebui lt by root

Feb 24 13:43:06 li157-51 sendmail[27059]: /etc/mail/aliases: 4 aliases, longest 10 bytes, 66 bytes total

Feb 24 13:43:06 li157-51 sm-mta[27120]: starting daemon (8.14.3): SMTP+queueing@ 00:10:00

Feb 24 13:45:24 li157-51 postfix/master[27542]: fatal: bind 0.0.0.0 port 25: Add ress already in use

Feb 24 13:47:25 li157-51 postfix/postfix-script[27561]: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

Feb 24 14:05:38 li157-51 postfix/postfix-script[27655]: fatal: the Postfix mail system is not running

run sudo netstat -lnp | grep ":25" and it'll show what else is listening on port 25.

tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:25 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 271 20/sendmail: MTA

Alright postfix should say "master" instead of "sendmail" so it looks like you have two email servers, try running apt-get remove exim4-daemon-light exim4-daemon-heavy citadel-suite that will remove the common ones people use and leave postfix, then try restarting postfix.

> Reading package lists… Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information… Done

Package exim4-daemon-light is not installed, so not removed

Package exim4-daemon-heavy is not installed, so not removed

Package citadel-suite is not installed, so not removed

The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:

sendmail-base m4 procmail sensible-mda sendmail-cf libdb4.7

Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I still got the error obs, thanks for helping

Still the same log:

tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:25 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 27120/sendmail: MTA

what does ps -fp 27120 output

UID PID PPID C STIME TTY TIME CMD

root 27120 1 0 13:43 ? 00:00:00 sendmail: MTA: accepting connect

try apt-get remove sendmail and then restart postfix it looks like you have sendmail running as a daemon

> Package sendmail is not installed, so not removed

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Strange.

dump the output of dpkg -l into http://pastebin.linode.com/ and I'll see which package is causing the problem.

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ii python2.6 2.6.5-1ubuntu6 An interactive high-level object-oriented language (version 2.6)

ii python2.6-minimal 2.6.5-1ubuntu6 A minimal subset of the Python language (version 2.6)

ii readline-common 6.1-1 GNU readline and history libraries, common files

ii rsync 3.0.7-1ubuntu1 fast remote file copy program (like rcp)

ii rsyslog 4.2.0-2ubuntu8.1 enhanced multi-threaded syslogd

ii sed 4.2.1-6 The GNU sed stream editor

rc sendmail-base 8.14.3-9.1ubuntu1 powerful, efficient, and scalable Mail Transport Agent

rc sendmail-bin 8.14.3-9.1ubuntu1 powerful, efficient, and scalable Mail Transport Agent

rc sendmail-cf 8.14.3-9.1ubuntu1 powerful, efficient, and scalable Mail Transport Agent

rc sensible-mda 8.14.3-9.1ubuntu1 Mail Delivery Agent wrapper

ii sensible-utils 0.0.1ubuntu3 Utilities for sensible alternative selection

ii ssl-cert 1.0.23ubuntu2 simple debconf wrapper for OpenSSL

ii strace 4.5.19-2 A system call tracer

ii sudo 1.7.2p1-1ubuntu5.3 Provide limited super user privileges to specific users

ii sysv-rc 2.87dsf-4ubuntu17 System-V-like runlevel change mechanism

ii sysvinit-utils 2.87dsf-4ubuntu17 System-V-like utilities

ii tar 1.22-2ubuntu1 GNU version of the tar archiving utility

ii tasksel 2.73ubuntu26 Tool for selecting tasks for installation on Debian systems

ii tasksel-data 2.73ubuntu26 Official tasks used for installation of Debian systems

ii time 1.7-23build1 The GNU time program for measuring cpu resource usage

ii traceroute 2.0.13-2 Traces the route taken by packets over an IPv4/IPv6 network

ii ttf-dejavu-core 2.30-2 Vera font family derivate with additional characters

ii tzdata 2010o-0ubuntu0.10.04 time zone and daylight-saving time data

ii ubuntu-keyring 2010.11.09 GnuPG keys of the Ubuntu archive

ii ubuntu-minimal 1.197 Minimal core of Ubuntu

ii ubuntu-standard 1.197 The Ubuntu standard system

ii ucf 3.0025 Update Configuration File: preserve user changes to config files.

ii udev 151-12.3 rule-based device node and kernel event manager

ii unzip 6.0-1build1 De-archiver for .zip files

ii upstart 0.6.5-8 event-based init daemon

ii ureadahead 0.100.0-4.1.3 Read required files in advance

ii usbutils 0.86-2ubuntu1 Linux USB utilities

ii util-linux 2.17.2-0ubuntu1.10.04.2 Miscellaneous system utilities

ii vim 2:7.2.330-1ubuntu3 Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor

ii vim-common 2:7.2.330-1ubuntu3 Vi IMproved - Common files

ii vim-runtime 2:7.2.330-1ubuntu3 Vi IMproved - Runtime files

ii vim-tiny 2:7.2.330-1ubuntu3 Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor - compact version

ii wget 1.12-1.1ubuntu2.1 retrieves files from the web

ii whiptail 0.52.10-5ubuntu1 Displays user-friendly dialog boxes from shell scripts

ii whois 5.0.0ubuntu3 an intelligent whois client

ii xkb-data 1.8-1ubuntu8 X Keyboard Extension (XKB) configuration data

ii zlib1g 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-15ubuntu1 compression library - runtime

The only mta I see is postfix, you've had sendmail installed but it's been removed, silly question, have you rebooted?

No, just restarted apache. Do i need to?

Might help, could just be a lingering process that hasn't been killed for some odd reason.

That worked! Now i reloaded postfix and no error messages.

Now i need to keep trying to setup it right.

What is driving me crazy is the FQDN thing in the documentation.

1. In the starting guide it says to edit "/etc/hosts"

so now is:
> 127.0.0.1 localhost

173.xxx.xxx.51 grevan.domain.com grevan
Do "domain.com" must be a real domain? It´s not well explained there.

2. In Postfix documentation it mentions FQDN as your real domain with a DNS zone and a A Record.

I just don´t know if i have to change my FQDN in "/etc/hosts" to be the same in postfix…

Confused here

Thanks a lot obs!

Yes it needs to be a real domain name so other servers on the internet can access it.

You should set /etc/hostname to the real domain FQDN as well as adding it to /etc/hosts and add it to /etc/mailname

Then make sure you've set your DNS servers to point an A record for your FQDN to your ip, this may take a day to take effect (normally only 15 minutes).

Lastly your /etc/postfix/main.cf should look something like this

# 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/mailname

smtpd_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 = 4h

readme_directory = no

# TLS parameters
smtpd_tls_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem
smtpd_tls_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key
smtpd_use_tls=yes
smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache
smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${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.

myhostname = YOURFQDN
alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases
alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases
myorigin = /etc/mailname
mydestination = localhost, localhost.$mydomain, localhost
relayhost = 
mynetworks = 127.0.0.0
mailbox_size_limit = 0
recipient_delimiter = +
inet_interfaces = 127.0.0.1
inet_protocols = ipv4

Note replace YOURFQDN with your FQDN, (that's my working config btw).

If you're using a firewall you'll need to allow outbound access on port 25.

Thanks obs.

So in /etc/hostname should i set a real domain name?

It´s just "grevan" there.

In the starting guide it says to:
> echo "plato" > /etc/hostname

hostname -F /etc/hostname

no domain here, just a name "plato"

• and just to clear my thoughts., i just pick a real domain i have to add in the etc/hosts? No matter how many domains i host in my server, there will be only one domain in etc/hosts?

yes it's a good idea to put the FQDN in /etc/hostname

technically you don't have to add it to /etc/hosts it just speeds up local DNS resolution, you just need to have one real domain as your FQDN in /etc/hostname /etc/hosts etc

In /etc/postfix/main.cf
> myhostname = mail.mydomain.com
my FQDN is mydomain.com, should i change myhostname in main.cf to mydomain.com?

I created an A Record in mydomain.com called "mail", is that it?

If you created an A record for mail.mydomain.com then your FQDN is mail.mydomain.com not mydomain.com

Oh, i see.

When i create a domain zone, by default is created a "www" and a "mail" A Records.

In this case wich one is my FQDN in "etc/hostname"?

Do i leave it like this?

*maybe i´m getting this wrong.

I think "myhostname" in "/etc/postfix/main.cf" is not the same "hostname" in "/etc/hosts", they are all mentioned as FQDN, but they are not the same then.

In "main.cf", myhostname depends on my A Record.

In "etc/hostname" is my domain a created a DNS zone for.

A FQDN is a fully qualified domain name which can be

domain.com

www.domain.com

mail.domain.com

pie.domain.com

anything.domain.com

Basically whatever you like as long as you own domain.com

All you need to do is be consistent /etc/hostname /etc/hosts /etc/mailname and myhostname all need to be the same one.

Thanks obs!

How much i´ve learned today.

The documentation in the library is not that "consistent" :roll:

One more thing. :oops:

Do i need to set a reverse DNS anyway?

What is that for?

Thanks

The library is pretty good but it can be confusing it's like information overload.

Anyway yes set rDNS, reverse dns resolves your ip address to your domain, mail servers use it to help prevent spam.

Thank you very much for your help!

In my site´s script, socialengine, i can now send emai to all members in the administration section, but on the public side of the site, there is an invite page that members can inite anyone to join, but it´s not working there.

I just did the basic configuration of postfix, didn´t setup any Email Virtual Hosting in "/etc/postfix/virtual", i think this is to setup accounts to receive emails, am i right?

Do you have any clues of what can be wrong or missing?

What does tail /var/log/mail.log say after you try and send an email from the invite page, you don't need to set up any virtual hosting unless you want to receive emails (which you don't).

Strange, i tried another email receipt and it was sent.

The gmail is not received, i tried again, but the hotmail was.

I tried to send to 3 emails: gmail, hotmail and centroin, the log shows only the hotmail and centroin, it ignores the gmail….

Your log shows one to gmail here

Feb 25 15:55:38 loseweightforever postfix/smtp[2339]: 2B579105CC: to=<domainhut@gmail.com>, relay=gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[209.85.225.27]:25, delay=0.59, delays=0.05/0.01/0.16/0.37, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 OK 1298649338 ut8si1846805icb.77)</domainhut@gmail.com> 

Try setting up a spf record (see here http://old.openspf.org/wizard.html) then give it a day and see if you still have problems.

That to gmail was an old one, from the admin area, that works…

Ok, i will give that a try.

But i have a question, just noticed, when i sent the email to Centroin, when i checked the inbox, in the Sender field appears : SocialBits@loseweightforever.biz

In hotmail or Gmail appears only SocialBits. My FQDN is loseweightforever.biz, but socialbits is another site, another subject, so it feels strange. Do you know how to managed that?

Thanks a lot.

Your script needs to set the correct headers and use the php mail additional parameters to add "-r fromemail@domain.com" (replacing fromemail@domain.com with the real email).

Thanks obs!

Really helpful.