Preface
Ed's FreeBSD postfix+cyrus+sasl2+mysql Virtual Mail How-To
This how-to will describe the steps required to create a virtual mail email server using FreeBSD, postfix (SMTP server), cyrus (POP3 and IMAP server), sasl2 (auth server), and MySQL (holds all addresses, passwords, aliases, and domains). Additionally it will use MD5 hashed/crypted passwords for security, and provide access to administer the users, domains, aliases, passwords via a web front-end as well as provide web access to email.
While I have a fully working virtual mail setup that this document describes, and others have successfully followed it as well, this is still a work in progress as I fill in any blanks left over and fix other minor errors. As it stands, it'll get you something like ~99% there if not completely. Everything seems to be here and accurate, but don't be surprised if something is missing or somewhat different when you attempt it. -
Why would you want to read/follow this how-to?
This is for anyone who wants to, or plans to, host one or more domains on a single machine and have bob@domain1.tld and bob@domain2.tld be completely different accounts. Most people will only host one domain, perhaps a couple, just for themselves and have no need for seperate bob@ users. But if you do need a seperate bob@ user for each domain, or want a "sealed system" w/o real user logins on the system, then this is for you. To do all of this we'll be using postfix, cyrus, sasl2, mysql, apache (+ php4), squirrelmail (+ vlogin, quota, and avelsieve plugins), and postfixadmin.
So will I have to have a bunch of CNAMEs and virtual hosts and stuff?
No, aside from the web interface portion if desired. Your users login names will be stuff like fu@domain1.tld and bar@domain2.tld. This isn't a wholly uncommon practice at any other ISP your users may have used before.
One of the other how-tos on this I read they stored the passwords as plaintext. What about this one?
Nope. There is a patch for sasl2 which allows the use of DES, MD5, and Blowfish crypted/hashed passwords. The MD5 hashed passwords you'll end up using from this are compatible with the FreeBSD passwords in the system passwd file.
I want to use Courier IMAP instead of Cyrus. Is that covered? Can you help me with that?
No, I can't help you with that and it isn't covered. If you want to use Courier IMAP with Postfix for a virtual mail system there are dozens of how-tos on that already. In fact, going that route is quite a bit easier.
I'd like to use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. Can I and how?
Yes and No. Postfix can be made to use pgsql easily. Cyrus itself doesn't use either, but cyrus-sasl2 does. A friend tried to use pgsql and had errors compiling cyrus-sasl2 with the "frost" patches applied. Postfixadmin, as of 2.1.0, supports both MySQL and PgSQL. The big stumbling block to using PgSQL instead of MySQL is support in cyrus-sasl2. If anyone goes the PgSQL route mostly following this and gets it all to work feel free to email me the changes you needed to do so I can add them as a footnote or something.
Wow, this takes a lot of work!
Sure does, but following this how-to reduces the amount of work due to research and troubleshooting by more than 50%. No wonder it is so much easier to, you know, pay someone else to host your email and deal with all of the upgrade hassles.
I have users in my default domain (somedomain.com) and they can login using just their name (bob) in addition to their full email address (bob@somedomain.com). Is there a way to force them to use their full email address?
None that I am aware of short of using a different default domain. You might be able to use some sort of proxy for your remote pop3/imap connections, but that would very likely break SSL/TLS which would be even worse.
I want to use one installation of SquirrelMail and just point a bunch of different Apache virtual hosts at it (webmail.domain1.tld, www.domain2.tld/mail/, etc.). Can I do that, and how?
In this how-to we use Apache, SquirrelMail, and the SquirrelMail plugin vlogin to enable just that. I don't cover the addition of several Apache virtual hosts, but that's really all that needs to be done.
Some things to keep in mind
You got this off the internet - don't trust everything you find on the internet. Buyer beware. You might get what you paid for. You might get a whole lot more than what you paid for.
Your mileage will vary.
If you lose data, your job, or whatever, don't blame me - this is all at your own risk.
I use FreeBSD whenever possible and wrote this document for FreeBSD. If you use Linux this will still help you, but things will be Different and I won't help you - It can be done on Linux with minor changes, but you're on your own.
A lot of this document glosses over tons of stuff hardly ever mentioning the actualy install and/or readme documents that come with each piece of software mentioned here. We're basicly just blowing through things assuming that the defaults will be the same for you as they are for me right now. When in doubt, read the install, readme, and upgrading docs. In fact, you should read those anyway even if you follow this and it works right the first time.
Security is a problem in some cases here. Like I said, we're going to blow through some things just to get your virtual mail setup up and running. As an admin it is your job to understand your system and to take the needed steps to make it as secure as possible. This document isn't going to tell you all of those steps and it isn't meant for n00bs.
If you find a typo, or that something has changed since some piece of software has been upgraded, feel free to send me you're notes on that and I'll try and get this updated ASAP.
If you've used this before, or are just curious, you might find the Change Log to be of value.
What you'll need
A working FreeBSD 6.0 (or newer) system. FreeBSD 6.1 is highly recommended.
An up-to-date perl (5.8.6+) just because upgrading perl later will be a pain in the ass. If using FreeBSD 5.3.x you'll very likely have to install a full perl from ports anyway.
sudo - If you don't know what this is you need to stop right here and not even consider this undertaking. At all. Period.
joe - Because I like it, vi bothers me, and emacs is the wrong answer.
MySQL 4.1.x
cyrus-sasl2
Cyrus 2.3.x
postfix 2.3.x
apache
PHP
phpMyAdmin - Optional though generally handy in case you need a quick peek at the tables and don't have shell access.
postfixadmin
squirrelmail
compatibility
vlogin
quota_usage
avelsieve
Happy fun compile/install/configure time
FreeBSD
You should be installing FreeBSD 6 these days. This how-to was originally written using 4.11-Rel and updated for 5.4-Rel, but everything applies to 6-Rel (and newer) with almost no exceptions. You're pretty much on your own with this step, but a base no-frills install with ports is all you need. You won't be needing X11 for any of this so don't install that unless you have some other need.
Be sure to CVSup your system to get the latest fixes and a current ports collection. Rebuild at least your kernel if there were any source changes (and trust me, there will have been some). For maximum security you should buildworld as well to make sure you get all updates to the system installed at once. Documenting how to cvsup the system and build the kernel and world are way beyond the scope of this document.
You're also going to probably want to setup a basic firewall on the system. I recommend using pf but ipfw and ipf both will do all of the basics. Again, this step is totally beyond the scope of this document.
perl
Get perl updated/installed if needed.
sudo
sudo allows you to run things as the super user (hence the name) or even as another user. It's very handy. Compile and install:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/security/sudo
make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
rehash
You'll need to configure sudo so your non-root user login can use it. Most of everything written here will assume you're either doing everything as root or will have spawned a shell with sudo to get root privs. I realize there is a line in the sample config which allows you to use sudo w/o entering your password, but try to resist doing that as really bad things can happen easier than otherwise.
The sudo file is /usr/local/etc/sudoers and by default is not writable by anyone (and for good reason). To edit it use the visudo command which will securely modify it. If for some reason you don't have visudo, you can do this to edit it instead:
QUOTE:
chmod u+w /usr/local/etc/sudoers ; joe /usr/local/etc/sudoers ; chmod a-w,o-rwx /usr/local/etc/sudoers ; rm /usr/local/etc/*~
If you do all of that on one line, everything should be ok, otherwise you have to do a bunch of lines and I did say this was going to be somewhat cut%26amp;waste friendly. To use visudo or the above method you'll either have to be logged in as root or su'ed.
At this point you should log out, login as your non-root user, and then either sudo /bin/csh (effecively root all the time) or just use sudo for each command as needed (what you are supposed to do). This is really a preference thing, but regardless, you will need sudo later on for part of the cyrus install.
joe
joe is a wordstar-style text editor. I like it but you may or may not like it as well. This is an optional step but it's the editor I'll be referencing in this document.
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/editors/joe
make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
rehash
mysql
Compile and install the MySQL server, client, and client libraries which we'll be using later:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/databases/mysql41-server
make %26amp;%26amp; make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
Add the following to your /etc/rc.conf to enable MySQL to be started:
QUOTE:
mysql_enable="yes"
Go ahead and kick mysql off:
QUOTE:
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server.sh start
cyrus-sasl2
Get the cyrus-sasl2 crypt patches from http://frost.ath.cx/software/cyrus-sasl-patches/. You might want to add this link to your list of reference material. Follow the directions there to apply them to your cyrus-sasl2 source. Basicly you're going to take all of the FreeBSD patch files and dump them into the /usr/ports/security/cyrus-sasl2/files/ dir.
Now compile with MySQL support:
QUOTE:
make -DWITHOUT_OTP=YES -DWITHOUT_NTLM=YES -DWITHOUT_GSSAPI=YES -DWITH_MYSQL
If the compile succeeds, do the following to finish up:
QUOTE:
make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
Don't bother to follow the config options on the frost page, just patch the source - we'll be covering the config later on.
Cyrus
You'll be using Cyrus 2.3.x for this
Get the Autocreate INBOX patch for Cyrus files from http://email.uoa.gr/projects/cyrus/autocreate/ for your version of Cyrus and save them in your homedir. You should bookmark this link for future reference as well. Obviously if the version of Cyrus 2.3.x is not 2.3.3 then you should fetch the appropriate versions of the patches you need.
Compile and install cyrus:
Now extract, patch, and compile cyrus (in this case, 2.3.3):
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/mail/cyrus-imapd23/
make patch
cd work/cyrus-imapd-2.3.3/
patch -p1
patch -p1
cd ../..
make
Depending on your version more or less patch files may be required. Just apply all of them.
Assuming everything goes well,
make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
Note that later when a new version is released you'll have to do all of this over again - portupgrade will not apply these patches for you w/o additional configuration to /usr/local/etc/pkgtools.conf
Create the dir where all of our sealed cyrus files will reside:
QUOTE:
mkdir /usr/local/imap
Note that this differs from the default install paths but will bring things together nicely. Do not use /usr/local/cyrus/ which is where the cyrus programs are installed!
Create an ssl certificate named cyrus.pem for cyrus:
QUOTE:
openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -out /usr/local/imap/cyrus.pem -keyout /usr/local/imap/cyrus.pem -days 365
Find and set the following in /usr/local/etc/imapd.conf:
QUOTE:
configdirectory: /usr/local/imap
partition-default: /usr/local/imap/spool
unixhierarchysep: yes
servername: domain1.tld
admins: cyrus
autocreatequota: 102400
sieveusehomedir: false
sievedir: /usr/local/imap/sieve
sasl_pwcheck_method: auxprop
tls_cert_file: /usr/local/imap/cyrus.pem
tls_key_file: /usr/local/imap/cyrus.pem
lmtpsocket: /usr/local/imap/socket/lmtp
idlesocket: /usr/local/imap/socket/idle
notifysocket: /usr/local/imap/socket/notify
I realize it says servername which should be the FQDN and I'm telling you to use domain1.tld instead. Thing is, something is weird about the handling of domains and this seems to get around it. This could be a bug in cyrus22 or a bug because of the way I'm doing things, but using domain1.tld seems to do the trick for me. Your mileage might vary. The autocreatequota option is set to 100MB in this example and you might want to bump that up.
If you have a CA file for your SSL/TLS cert, then be sure to set tls_ca_file to point at it as well in the part above.
Add the following to the end of imapd.conf:
QUOTE:
virtdomains: yes
defaultdomain: domain1.tld
allowusermoves: yes
sasl_auxprop_plugin: sql
sasl_sql_user: postfix
sasl_sql_passwd: password
sasl_sql_database: postfix
sasl_sql_hostnames: localhost
sasl_sql_select: SELECT password FROM mailbox WHERE username='%u@%r' AND active='1'
sasl_sql_verbose: yes
sasl_sql_engine: mysql
sasl_mech_list: plain login
sasl_password_format: crypt
createonpost: yes
autocreateinboxfolders: spam
autosubscribeinboxfolders: spam
autocreate_sieve_script: /usr/local/imap/phpscript
autocreate_sieve_compiledscript: /usr/local/imap/phpscript.bc
generate_compiled_sieve_script: yes
Create /usr/local/imap/phpscript and populate it with the following:
QUOTE:
# This script has been automatically generated by avelsieve
# (Sieve Mail Filters Plugin for Squirrelmail)
#AVELSIEVE_VERSIONYTo0OntzOjU6Im1ham9yIjtpOjE7czo1OiJtaW5vciI7aTo5O3M6NzoicmVsZWFzZSI7aToyO3M6Njoic3RyaW5nIjtzOjU6IjEuOS4yIjt9
#AVELSIEVE_CREATED1111802924
#AVELSIEVE_MODIFIED1111803314
require ["fileinto","reject","vacation","imapflags","relational","comparator-i;ascii-numeric","regex","notify"];
if
#START_SIEVE_RULEYTo3OntzOjY6ImhlYWRlciI7YToxOntpOjA7czoxMToiWC1TcGFtLUZsYWciO31zOjk6Im1hdGNodHlwZSI7YToxOntpOjA7czoyOiJpcyI7fXM6MTE6ImhlYWRlcm1hdGNoIjthOjE6e2k6MDtzOjM6IllFUyI7fXM6NDoidHlwZSI7czoxOiIyIjtzOjY6ImFjdGlvbiI7czoxOiI1IjtzOjY6ImZvbGRlciI7czoxMDoiSU5CT1gvc3BhbSI7czo0OiJzdG9wIjtzOjI6Im9uIjt9END_SIEVE_RULE
header :is "X-Spam-Flag" "YES"
{
fileinto "INBOX/spam";
stop;
}
This sieve script will be copied to newly created users, compiled into bytecode, and run against every message that is delivered to the user. All this one does is check to see if the X-Spam-Flag header is present and set to YES. If it is, then the message is deposited to the spam folder which was also auto-created (if for some reason it doesn't exist it will go to the INBOX instead). When a message is found to be spam by SpamAssassin it gets this header. Obviously that's something extra you'll have to add yourself as I'm not covering it in this document.
If using this sieve script doesn't work later on you'll just have to create one with your test user and copy the phpscript.script to phpscript, blow away your user and their sieve dir ("How do I delete a user from my system entirely?"), then try again.
Note: If you'll have any users using POP3 instead of IMAP then you'll probably want to not do any of the automatic sieve scripting settings. The reason being that, unless I'm mistaken, POP3 will only get mail from the Inbox and not other folders (such as the spam folder).
Set permissions on the cyrus imap dir:
QUOTE:
chown -R cyrus:cyrus /usr/local/imap
chmod o-rwx /usr/local/imap
Find and fix the socket paths in cyrus.conf:
QUOTE:
lmtpunix cmd="lmtpd" listen="/usr/local/imap/socket/lmtp" prefork=0
notify cmd="notifyd" listen="/usr/local/imap/socket/notify" proto="udp" prefork=1
You'll also need to change the sieve listen line to make it use port 2000 instead of sieve which does not exist in /etc/services (there is "callbook" which you could use instead of 2000, but why?). Editing this line is better than editing a standard system file which you'll end up updating someday anyway.
QUOTE:
sieve cmd="timsieved" listen="2000" prefork=0
Create the fancy cyrus paths and files:
QUOTE:
sudo -u cyrus /usr/local/cyrus/bin/mkimap
This will spew a few lines saying that it created some files/dirs. If there are any errors, take care of them and try again. mkimap can only be run as the cyrus user, thus using sudo to run it as the cyrus user is required.
Make it so that cyrus will be started with the system by adding the following to the end of /etc/rc.conf:
QUOTE:
cyrus_imapd_enable="YES"
Start cyrus-imapd22:
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/imapd.sh start
If you go back and look in /usr/local/imap/ you'll notice some more files have been created there just now.
postfix
Compile and install postfix 2.3.x
Compile postfix:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/mail/postfix
make
A menu will appear asking you to select various options. This is mostly up to your own needs, but you'll want to make sure you select the TLS, SASL2, DB3 (provided SASL2 was built with it, which it is by default), and MySQL options at the very least. Make sure the "disable PCRE" option is not checked. I also use SPF but that patch has sometimes needed a little reworking in the past to make it work with other options and I won't cover that or how to configure for SPF in this document.
Install postfix:
QUOTE:
make install
At this point you'll be asked if you want to replace sendmail to which you need to answer Yes. Once done it will then mention two different sets of lines to add to your /etc/rc.conf. One set would be good if your postfix didn't depend on anything else, and another more suited to our needs. Make sure
QUOTE:
sendmail="none"
is set in in your /etc/rc.conf file. The reason for this line is because our postfix will depend on a MySQL server having been started at (or about) the same time.
Make it so postfix will start with the system:
ln -s /usr/local/sbin/postfix /usr/local/etc/rc.d/postfix.sh
You will also be asked to add the following to your /etc/periodic.conf :
QUOTE:
daily_clean_hoststat_enable="NO"
daily_status_mail_rejects_enable="NO"
daily_status_include_submit_mailq="NO"
daily_submit_queuerun="NO"
Clean up after the mess we've made:
make clean
Create an SSL key and certificate (self-signed is fine) and place them both in the /usr/local/etc/postfix/postfix.pem file. I can't find the link I last used to generate a self-signed cert and key, but a quick search on Yahoo or Google will turn up a ton of them for you.
Once your postfix.pem file has been created, set permissions on it:
QUOTE:
chown root:wheel postfix.pem
chmod o-rwx postfix.pem
Find and set the following in main.cf:
QUOTE:
mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain
local_recipient_maps = $alias_maps
relay_domains = $mydestination $transport_maps
alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases
alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases
recipient_delimiter = +
mailbox_transport = cyrus
smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name
Tell postfix to only deliver one message at a time via cyrus. This line is added to main.cf
QUOTE:
cyrus_destination_recipient_limit=1
Configure postfix to offer smtp auth only when TLS is active and enable TLS by adding the following to your main.cf:
QUOTE:
virtual_alias_maps = mysql:/usr/local/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_alias_maps.cf
virtual_mailbox_domains = mysql:/usr/local/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_domains_maps.cf
virtual_mailbox_maps = mysql:/usr/local/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_mailbox_maps.cf
virtual_mailbox_limit = 10240000
virtual_transport = cyrus
broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unauth_destination
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_sasl_local_domain = $mydomain
smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_use_tls = yes
smtpd_use_tls = yes
smtp_tls_note_starttls_offer = no
smtpd_tls_key_file = /usr/local/etc/postfix/postfix.pem
smtpd_tls_cert_file = /usr/local/etc/postfix/postfix.pem
smtpd_tls_CAfile =
smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1
smtpd_tls_received_header = yes
smtpd_tls_session_cache_timeout = 3600s
smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:/usr/local/etc/postfix/smtpd_scache
tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom
smtpd_tls_auth_only = yes
If you have a CA file for your SSL/TLS cert, then be sure to set smtpd_tls_CAfile to point at it as well in the part above.
Create the smtpd_scache files:
QUOTE:
touch /usr/local/etc/postfix/smtpd_scache
postmap btree:/usr/local/etc/postfix/smtpd_scache
I've been told that some books and how-tos say to use sdbm instead of btree. Apparently the TLS support in Postfix 2.2.x only supports btree, and in fact if you look at the current manual it only mentions btree in its example.
Create and add the following to /usr/local/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_alias_maps.cf :
QUOTE:
user = postfix
password = password
hosts = localhost
dbname = postfix
table = alias
select_field = goto
where_field = address
Create and add the following to /usr/local/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_domains_maps.cf :
QUOTE:
user = postfix
password = password
hosts = localhost
dbname = postfix
table = domain
select_field = description
where_field = domain
Create and add the following to /usr/local/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_mailbox_maps.cf :
QUOTE:
user = postfix
password = password
hosts = localhost
dbname = postfix
table = mailbox
select_field = username
where_field = username
Create and add the following to /usr/local/lib/sasl2/smtpd.conf :
QUOTE:
pwcheck_method: auxprop
auxprop_plugin: sql
sql_user: postfix
sql_passwd: password
sql_hostnames: localhost
sql_database: postfix
sql_select: SELECT password FROM mailbox WHERE username='%u@%r' AND active='1'
sql_verbose: yes
sql_engine: mysql
mech_list: plain
minimum_layer: 0
auto_transition: no
password_format: crypt
Make sure the path to the cyrus deliver program is correct and set the user delivery name properly in master.cf:
QUOTE:
cyrus unix - n n - - pipe
user=cyrus argv=/usr/local/cyrus/bin/deliver -e -r ${sender} -m ${extension} ${user}@${nexthop}
Now edit /etc/aliases and set root to alias to youradminuser@domain1.tld. Add another alias for cyrus to point to postmaster and make sure postmaster is aliased to root (it should be). These lines (not placed together in the file) will look like this:
QUOTE:
root: youradminuser@domain1.tld
postmaster: root
cyrus: postmaster
If you don't use a fully qualified email address for the root alias then the system will assume user@host.domain1.tld which will not have a valid user for postfix or cyrus to deliver to. Once done, run newaliases. Later on once creating users/aliases with postfixadmin, make sure you create this user or an alias from that alias to your virtual user.
But Ed, we haven't created the database or tables in MySQL yet! Nope, we haven't. We're going to do that in a bit when we get to postfixadmin as that port includes the MySQL scheme files.
apache
We'll be using a default Apache 2.2.x installation for this:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/www/apache22
make %26amp;%26amp; make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean %26amp;%26amp; rehash
Add the following to /etc/rc.conf:
QUOTE:
apache22_enable="yes"
PHP
Install the PHP4 base:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/lang/php4
make %26amp;%26amp; make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
The default options here should be fine. Make sure the Apache2 checkbox is checked, though.
Now to compile and install the PHP4 extentions:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/lang/php4-extensions/
make %26amp;%26amp; make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
This is where the major fun for PHP4 is. In the selection menu that comes up, you'll need the following at a minimum for all of this: imap, mcrypt, mhash, MySQL, OpenSSL, and PCRE. There'll be some other stuff selected and that's fine. Once this is done your options will be saved to the file /var/db/ports/php4-extensions/options. If you need/want to change the options later you can edit that file, or (better yet) run make config instead.
By default no php.ini file is installed, but we'll need one.
QUOTE:
cp /usr/local/etc/php.ini-recommended /usr/local/etc/php.ini
chmod u+w /usr/local/etc/php.ini
In a bit we'll need to make a couple changes to it which is why we're making it writable by root (the owner).
Open /usr/local/etc/apache2/httpd.conf and find the DirectoryIndex directive and add index.php to it so that it looks like:
QUOTE:
DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.php
Now add the following to /usr/local/etc/apache2/Includes/mine.conf :
QUOTE:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
SquirrelMail will need the pear-DB port installed, but the SM port doesn't install it for some reason so we'll take care of that now:
Install:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/databases/pear-DB
make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
Edit /usr/local/etc/php.ini and find the include_path setting (it will be commented out with a ";") and set it to be like the following:
QUOTE:
include_path = ".:/usr/local/share/pear/"
phpMyAdmin
Installing phpMyAdmin is optional but might be handy. Feel free to skip it.
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/databases/phpmyadmin/
make %26amp;%26amp; make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
Now add the following to /usr/local/etc/apache2/Includes/mine.conf :
QUOTE:
Alias /phpmyadmin/ "/usr/local/www/phpMyAdmin/"
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
allow from 12.34.56.78
deny from all
You'll want to add your IP address in there, and any others on seperate allow lines, for each host you want to grant access to phpMyAdmin. You don't want the world to have access to this, do you?
Go edit the phpMyAdmin config file appropriately so it'll actually work and be a little more secure (requiring a password, etc).
postfixadmin
Install:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/mail/postfixadmin
make install
Copy the MySQL scheme file for use in a bit:
QUOTE:
cp work/postfixadmin-2.1.0/DATABASE_MYSQL.TXT ~/
Clean up and rehash (for fun!):
QUOTE:
make clean ; rehash
Now let's install the DB scheme that we'll be using for pretty much everything. These instructions are mostly from the DATABASE_MYSQL.TXT file:
QUOTE:
mysql -u root -p
Note that this file inserts two users into the MySQL user table, one for postfix itself and another for postfixadmin. The actual passwords are the same as the username by default. You should edit the file to change the passwords to something better than the defaults and then go back and set that changed password for the files used by postfix and cyrus if you didn't set those already.
QUOTE:
Now add the following to /usr/local/etc/apache2/Includes/mine.conf :
Alias /postfixadmin/ "/usr/local/www/postfixadmin/"
Options Indexes
AllowOverride AuthConfig
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
postfixadmin has three modes: admin, user, and domain admin. admin mode will be used by you to do everything. user mode will be used by your users to change their passwords and set their forwarding address when/if needed. domain admin will be used by the users whom you're hosting a mail domain for - they can login and admin their own domains to add/remove/ users and aliases.
Fix the postfixadmin dir permissions:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/local/www/
chown -R root:www postfixadmin
cd postfixadmin
Edit config.inc.php and make things nice. Things of primary note will be the username and password (if changed from the above DB scheme install) for the postfix database and the virtual mail tables, and the password format to generate which needs to be set to md5crypt.
Fix annoying create-mailbox checkbox which we'll never use:
QUOTE:
joe templates/create-mailbox.tpl
Remove the checked option from the HTML tag named fMail which is near the bottom of the page. You will not be using this option at all. No point in always having to uncheck it, right? And really, you can just comment out that whole part so it doesn't blemish the world.
Fix a bug in their code which breaks this app. with MySQL:
Somewhere in the 4.4.x line of PHP they added support for using various charactor sets properly when escaping strings with mysql_real_escape_string(). Unfortunatly this requires that you have an active connection to the database server. At several points in the postfixadmin code they escape the user inputted strings (which is very good) before they have established a connection to any database server (in this case that's bad). To fix this, open the file functions.inc.php and find the escape_string function. You need to add a call to the function db_connect() inside the block that has the three IF statements. So it'll have the db_connect() call, then the three IF statements. Don't forget to add the semi-colon to the end of the line and then save it.
Fire up a browser and go to http://somehost/postfixadmin/ and it'll say some poop about needing to run setup. The setup isn't really a setup so much as a checkup. Once you click on the setup link, you should see a list of stuff all saying OK. It'll probably complain about PHPs magic quotes being off, but ignore that as postfixadmin has its own internal work-around. Click on the link to continue into the admin section.
Disable setup.php:
QUOTE:
mv setup.php setup.hph
If the file remains, even if unreadable by apache, postfixadmin will always want to run its little "setup" poop which is pointless since we've already done it. You could probably just rm this file, but you might need it again for some reason.
Change the admin password:
QUOTE:
htpasswd -mb admin/.htpasswd admin NewPassword
Feel free to substitute the username admin for another, but make sure you also either remove the admin user or change its password. The -m option says to generate an MD5 hashed password, and the -b says that the password will be supplied on the commandline. Feel free to omit the -b option and password on the commandline so that it prompts you for it instead. I only use that option for this document to make it easier to cut%26amp;waste.
Note: If after installation when you go to list aliases/mailboxes for a domain, but cannot select other domains and get an SQL error and your Apache error logs shows that access is denied for a user other than the postfixadmin (in my case it was saying root@localhost even though the MySQL root user is never used), you'll probably also see an error about the file functions.inc.php on line 131. Change the mysql_real_escape_string to mysql_escape_string and try again. After a while I upgraded some software and then had to make this change in order to keep postfixadmin working properly. The problem is that mysql_real_escape_string requires that the MySQL connection handle be passed to it, but in this case is not. Oh well.
SquirrelMail
Install SquirrelMail:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/mail/squirrelmail
make install
Now we need to add a database and tables to MySQL for the user preferences and address books:
First, create the database squirrelmail will use:
QUOTE:
mysqladmin create squirrelmail
Next, open up work/squirrelmail-1.4.4/doc/db-backend.txt and copy the two MySQL table sections to another file called tables.txt. We'll also create our SM user, set their password, and give them access to the SM database. The temporary file should look like the following:
QUOTE:
USE squirrelmail;
GRANT select,insert,update,delete ON squirrelmail.* TO squirreluser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'sqpassword';
CREATE TABLE address (
owner varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
nickname varchar(16) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
firstname varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
lastname varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
email varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
label varchar(255),
PRIMARY KEY (owner,nickname),
KEY firstname (firstname,lastname)
);
CREATE TABLE userprefs (
user varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
prefkey varchar(64) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
prefval BLOB DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (user,prefkey)
);
Now create our user and tables:
QUOTE:
mysql -u root -p
And clean up after our mess:
QUOTE:
make clean
rm tables.txt
Now add the following to /usr/local/etc/apache2/Includes/mine.conf :
QUOTE:
Alias /squirrelmail/ "/usr/local/www/squirrelmail/"
Options Indexes MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
Get, install, and configure everything we need:
The following plugins are the bare minimum that we'll need for out SquirrelMail setup. It should go without saying that the versions of the following plugins were current at the time of the inital writing of this how-to but have since been upgraded. As time permits I'll update this to reflect those updates, but make sure you check for the latest versions yourself. The installation of these should change much with their updates, but that can change, so keep that in mind. When in doubt RTFM.
compatibility
This provides some needed APIs used by various plugins in order to be used with multiple versions of SM. In particular we'll be needing this for the vlogin plugin. You're likely to need it for other plugins as well. We'll use the port to install this for us:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/mail/squirrelmail-compatibility-plugin/
make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
avelsieve
avelsieve is brought to us by the same people that made the autocreate patches for cyrus-imapd22. Currently you can get this plugin from http://www.squirrelmail.org/plugin_view.php?id=73, but be sure to check for updates.
QUOTE:
cd /usr/local/www/squirrelmail/plugins
tar xvfz ~/avelsieve-1.9.2.tar.gz
chown -R root:www avelsieve
cd avelsieve/config
cp config_sample.php config.php
cd ../..
quota_usage
Currently you can get this plugin from http://www.squirrelmail.org/plugin_view.php?id=59. Extract and set permissions:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/local/www/squirrelmail/plugins
tar xvfz ~/quota_usage-1.3-1.2.7.tar.gz
chown -R root:www quota_usage
cd quota_usage
cp config.php.sample config.php
cd ..
vlogin
Install the plugin:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/ports/mail/squirrelmail-vlogin-plugin
make install %26amp;%26amp; make clean
In the event your system does not have the vlogin port, you'll need to get it from http://www.squirrelmail.org/plugin_view.php?id=47. After that the extraction is just like the other plugins:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/local/www/squirrelmail/plugins
tar xvfz ~/vlogin-3.8.0-1.2.7.tar.gz
chown -R root:www avelsieve
Copy the sample config to our inital config:
QUOTE:
cd /usr/local/www/squirrelmail/plugins/vlogin/data
cp config.php.sample.typical config.php
Now edit config.php and find the $virtualDomains array define near the top. It'll have a couple virtual domains defined already, but we're going to replace them:
QUOTE:
'host.domain1.tld' = array(
'domain' = 'domain1.tld',
'org_name' = 'Domain One',
'org_title' = '(isset($_SESSION["username"]) ? $_SESSION["username"] . " - Mail" : "Mail")',
),
'host.domain2.tld' = array(
'domain' = 'domain2.tld',
'org_name' = 'Domain Two',
'org_title' = '(isset($_SESSION["username"]) ? $_SESSION["username"] . " - Mail" : "Mail")',
),
You'll need to add a similar section for each hostname that someone will use to access their webmail with. For example, you have your server setup so that domain1.tld and www.domain1.tld serve the same content instead of domain1.tld redirecting to www.domain1.tld (or visa versa). So for this to work right you'll have to have two sections with the only difference being the hostname.
As you can see we've also removed the logo setting from the sample as you won't have the image it refers to. There are a lot of other settings which we aren't using, but you can look at the other sample configs to find them later. For now we don't need them.
Configure SquirrelMail
QUOTE:
cd /usr/local/www/squirrelmail
config/conf.pl
There's a ton of stuff in here you will want to set, such as your organization name and URL. The critical things are the follwoing, however:
Server Settings / IMAP Settings : Select cyrus as the Server Software, change the Delimiter from . (dot) to / (slash), and set Authentication type to login.
Plugins : Add the compatibility, vlogin, quota_usage, and avelsieve plugins to the Installed Plugins list from the Available Plugins list.
Database : Set DSN for Address Book and DSN for Preferences to both be mysql://squirreluser:sqpassword@localhost/squirrelmail
Folder Options : Change the Trash, Sent, and Drafts paths to all use a / (slash) instead of a . (dot). Also change the Unseen Notify option from "Only on the INBOX" to "On all folders."
Add domains, users, and aliases
Open a browser and go to http://somehost/postfixadmin/admin/ and feed it whatever username and password we configured for that (admin:admin is the default, but I told you it should be changed, remember?).
Click on New Domain. Type in the your domain and the same for the description as well. The first domain we add should be the domain1.tld that we used in the configs earlier. Adjust the Aliases and Mailboxes numbers accordingly - these are the max that postfixadmin will allow for each to be created. Only postfixadmin cares about these two values. The Quota value can be ignored, but you should set it to the same value (in MB) as was set in the cyrus imapd.conf file. If you check the Add default mail aliases option then abuse, hostmaster, webmaster, and postmaster aliases will be created for this domain. You almost certainly want to do this. Click on Add doamin to finish up.
Now click on Add mailbox. The first user we have to create is the cyrus admin user which will simply be "cyrus". This special user will be used to login and admin the cyrus system via the cyradm program. If you added more than one domain in the earlier step make sure you select the domain you want this user to be in from the pulldown list on the right. Now fill in the password and name fields. Make sure Active is checked and (if you didn't just comment it out entirely) that Create mailbox is not checked. Click on Add mailbox to finish.
Near the end of the postfix section we added an alias for cyrus to go to the postmaster alias (which in turn points to the root alias). This cyrus user we just created is for admin purposes of the cyrus system.
If you want to create an alias that directs mail to multiple users (or aliases), then create your alias as described for a single person, then go to the Virtual List, select the domain with the alias you just added, and edit the added alias. If you've added a lot of aliases and the one you want isn't listed, click on the round right-arrow on the top right of the alias list. Once you edit an alias you'll have a textarea to add multiple aliases to. One fully-qualified address per line.
Go back a couple steps and make your own email account before continuing.
Now let's see if we can login as our newly created user. Go to http://somehost/squirrelmail/ and enter your username and password for the mailbox you just created in the form of user@domain.tld even though we've setup vlogin. Within seconds you should be logged in and see a mail folder on the left and the INBOX on the right. Remember those autocreate options we added to cyrus-imapd? In the folder list you'll see one called "spam." If you click on "Filters" along the top you should see the first rule is the Spam rule.
How do I delete a user from my system entirely?
Assuming you've already deleted a user from the MySQL user tables either manually or using postfixadmin (preferred), your next step will be to login to the cyrus admin script, cyradm, as the cyrus admin user:
QUOTE:
cyradm --user cyrus@domain1.tld localhost
Once you enter the correct password you'll get the cyradm prompt, enter the following:
QUOTE:
sam user/user@domain.tld cyrus all
dm user/user@domain.tld
The sam command gives the user cyrus (your cyrus admin user) full rights to the users INBOX. The dm command then deletes the users INBOX and everything below it. Once a mailbox has been deleted, it is gone forever. There is no recovery short of restoring an old backup (if you have one). Notice the user/ at the beginning of the users email address? That's because you can have public folders off of the root of the cyrus folder space. Check the cyrus docs for more information on that - it can be a bit tricky.
Troubleshooting
This section needs to be expanded greatly.
P: When I try to login from a remote client I get a user not found error, I see that my name is 'name@domain.tld.' in the mysql log, but it works fine when I login from the server itself (pine or squirrelmail installed on the server).
S: Check your /etc/hosts file and make sure there are no periods at the ends of your host names. Your server may be working fine, but cyrus pays a lot of attention to things like the hostname so it is critical that they be proper.
End
So easy!
I'd like to thank the following people for finding this document and taking it for a test-drive in its early stages (i.e., not complete, had some errors) and providing the feedback needed to polish it up a bit and get it completed:
Bruno [bruno--at--tinkerbox--dot--org]
George Manessiotis [george--at--hypernetcns--dot--net]
Ulf Zimmerman [ulf--at--alameda--dot--net]
I would also like to thank the following people for their gifts, thank-yous, and bug fixs:
Timothy Brown (For the music)
Richard Horvitz (For the DVD)
Olivier Piardon (For pointing out that the cyrus/postmaster alias was backwards.)
David Newman (TLS session cache suggestion, tons of fixes, and a DVD on top of all that.)
Jon Schragal (For the DVD)
Here's an image of my email address: . Feel free to contact me with any relevent questions, comments, etc. If you followed this how-to and found it really helpful, feel free to say "thanks" and/or visit my Amazon.co, m wishlist (I like music and books).
Changes
Sat Aug 5 08:33:44 PDT 2006 : Added the cyrus_destination_recipient_limit option to the postfix main.cf config section. This option fixes problems where someone sends a message "To: user1@domain.tld, user2@domain.tld" and you get a funky bounce message for a name like "user1+sender@domain2.tld@domain.tld" This really should have been included a long time ago.
Mon Jan 16 09:40:55 PST 2006 : Added the smtpd_tls_session_cache_database option to the postfix main.cf config and how to create the cache file. Tons of clean-up and beautification work throughout the entire how-to. Quite a few fixes made as well.
Sun Jan 15 14:58:43 PST 2006 : Troubleshooting section added. It needs more work.
Sat Jan 14 19:51:10 PST 2006 : Finally removed the login realm config option from the Cyrus section.
Fri Dec 9 11:05:38 PST 2005 : Finally got around to removeing the cyrus-sasl2-saslauthd section as it is unneeded.
Tue Oct 4 06:32:35 PDT 2005 : Fixed an error with the cyrus-postmaster alias
Sun Sep 11 15:36:14 PDT 2005 : Finally moved this to the wistful.net wiki. The original document will be replaced by a redirect to this page.
Wed Jul 27 22:46:06 PDT 2005 : Update postfixAdmin to reflect use of "md5crypt" instead of "system." This allows users and domain admins to login and admin their own users/domains instead of just the system admin being able to work.
Sun Jun 26 22:50:31 PDT 2005 : Update instructions for cyrus-imapd22. Started this change log section. Removed FreeBSD 4.11 as an option from the requirements as a 5.4 (or newer) system should be used for new installations anyway.
