mailserver setup

[matthew]

Hi,
I hope here is somebody can help me setting up horde. I have a domain, http://www.xyz.toplevel, which have an mx-record xyz.toplevel with prio 10 to mail.xyz.toplevel

How can I setup for all users an email account using the admin page from my b3? I tried a lot, but it fails.
In "retrieve email" I registered the users, which I like to get an account. In "server settings" outgoing email-server I put in mail.xyz.topleveldomain and the same in handle email for domain. This doesn't lead to success...

Whats the problem?

[DanielM]

I can't really understand what you are saying here. Did you read the manual?

Every user automatically gets an email account, you don't have to do anything else for that. The retrieve mail section is only useful if you want to fetch mail from email accounts on another server, this section can be left completely blank. The outgoing server is the server your B3 is supposed to contact to send mail, this has to be another server than the B3 itself.

But I guess big question here is: What is not working? Are we talking incoming or outgoing mail? What exactly is happening when you try to send mail? Any useful error messages anywhere? Anything useful in mail logs?

/Daniel

[matthew]

Ok after cunsulting the manual I see that horde is only a mail-client. But what is with b3 as a mail-server? I opened the ports and activated the services for this functionality. Unfortunately Im absolutely new to setting up a mailserver. Is there somebody, who can give me some basic informations?

[Gordon]

The mailserver is called dovecot. You should verify the following lines in /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf:

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protocols = imap imaps
mail_location = maildir:~/Mail

For Horde to be able to display your email, the protocols line should at least read imap. Also note the mail location ~/Mail - mailservers can be picky about user rights on this folder and ofcourse it has to exist. There is a helper script provided to create the mailfolder: maildirmake

[nobody]

the easiest way to create the correct maildir structure is by sending an email to the new account. Postfix will then create the subfolders and set the permissions.

[matthew]

Thanks for your replies.

So at this moment I can receive mails, but sending mails to popular mail-provider like Gmail or GMX fails. A Google-search tells me that many mail-providers don't accept mails from not authenticated mailservers. The reason for this policy I understand, but what can I do if I still want to send emails using my domainname? I found a topic, in which is discussed that users send mails using the outgoing-server of a mailprovider. This ends in following logs in /var/log/mail.log:

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host smtp.googlemail.com[173.194.69.16] said: 530 5.7.0 Must issue a STARTTLS command first

In which conf-file I can configure TTLS?

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postfix/smtp[463]: 8CB5330361: to=<xyz@gmx.de>, relay=mx1.gmx.net[213.165.64.102]:25, delay=0.33, delays=0.08/0/0.25/0, dsn=4.4.2, status=deferred (lost connection with mx1.gmx.net[213.165.64.102] while receiving the initial server greeting)

Hows your way to send mails using your domain?

[DanielM]

I still don't understand. Are your B3 talking directly to smtp.googlemail.com now? I have set up mine to send mail to the smtp server that my isp provides, it works without problems.

/Daniel

[Gordon]

It's called TLS and it's an encryption protocol (SSL). It's most commonly used to enable relaying to other domains and you should never see this when talking to a recipients mail server.

If you don't configure postfix to use a relayhost it will act as a smarthost and try to deliver emails directly to the recipients mailserver. A common issue in this case is that many internet providers are blocking this type of traffic and if you want to send emails you need to use their server. Usually this will not require a password, but you should check this with your provider.

Open the file /etc/postfix/main.cf and find the section:

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#myhostname = b3.localdomain
#myorigin = /etc/mailname
#relayhost = foo.co.uk
#inet_interfaces = all
#smtp_sasl_security_options = noplaintext, noanonymous
#smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
#smtp_sasl_auth_enable = no

I suggest you leave that there for reference and enter the correct entries below. The quick setup without authentication would be similar to this (just picking a common German cable provider):

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myhostname = mail.xyz.toplevel
myorigin = xyz.toplevel
relayhost = smtp.ish.de

If you do require authentication, e.g. if you like to use Google mailserver as your smarthost, this help page will get you on route: http://postfix.state-of-mind.de/patrick ... rvers.html

One additional note: I found that several of my emails were being bounced with the message “Body type not supported by remote host”. Apparently this occurs when the recipients mail is being handled by a server that cannot cope with 8-bit mime, making this either a fifty year old antique or a Microsoft server. To allow your emails to reach the recipient, you should instruct postfix to send outgoing messages using 7-bit mime by adding the following to main.cf:

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smtp_never_send_ehlo = yes

[nobody]

It may also be smart to set

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 proxy_interfaces = 1.2.3.4 #(the proxy/NAT external network address)

If the B3 is behind a router.

[matthew]

haven't got enough time to test your hints, but thanx for the responses, especially to you gordon for your extensive answer, once again.