How to setup postfix and dovecot on debian

Replace the myhostname , mydomain and mynetworks variables to match your own configurations. You can run postconf -n command in order to dump Postfix main configuration file and check eventual errors, as shown in the below screenshot.

After all configurations are in place, restart Postfix daemon to apply changes and verify if the service is running by inspecting if Postfix master service is binding on port 25 by running netstat command. In order to test if postfix can handle mail transfer, first install mailutils package by running the following command.

You can also verify in what manner the mail was handled by postfix service by inspecting the content of the mail log file by issuing the following command. IMAP is a protocol which runs on and SSL ports, which is responsible reading, deleting or moving mails across multiple email clients. The IMAP protocol also uses synchronization in order to assure that a copy of each message is saved on the server and allows users to create multiple directories on the server and move mails to this directories in order to sort the e-mails.

This is not the case with POP3 protocol. You only have the inbox folder to manage mail. After Dovecot has been installed in your system, open the below dovecot files for editing and make the following changes.

Here search for Postfix smtp-auth block and make the following change:. Test if the mail server is running properly by adding a new user account to the system and use telnet or netcat command to connect to the SMTP server and send a new mail to the new added user, as illustrated in the below excerpts. Users will manage their emails via Rainloop Webmail client.

After Rainloop Webmail client has been installed in the system, navigate to your domain IP address and login to Rainloop admin web interface with the following default credentials:. Postfix itself implements the core requirements to receive, route, and deliver mail, and relies on third-party extensions to do the rest. Postfix has several hundred configuration parameters. If you want to administer a mail server that reliably delivers business requirements to a sizable organization, you should make yourself intimate with all of them man 5 postconf.

This tutorial will not be enough, on its own, to make you a competent professional email admin. However, if you want to become familiar with postfix or set up a mail server for yourself and a few friends, this tutorial, and the ones to follow, will be your friend.

Dovecot is also huge here is the wiki for dovecot 2 , but we only want a very small set of features from dovecot. This article explains almost every single setting to be set in detail. You can go ahead and skim over the explanations if you want - at your own risk. While any Debian-based OS should be fine, Postfix is in use in a wide array of versions, including Postfix 1. That you know how to use a text editor e. By default, commands will be entered and files edited from a rootshell on the droplet.

As in most other DigitalOcean articles, parts of commands that you need to customize will be highlighted. For SSL, you need a certificate and a private key. Make sure the key is only readable by the root user!

How to set up SSL certificates for your website and e-mail depends on your website structure and the CA you use self-signed, organisational sub -ca, or commercial ca for example. Creating a self-signed test certificate is as easy as executing. Most CAs will require you to submit a certificate signing request. CSR You can generate one like this:. Here are some snippets from my configuration file beware: it is not a complete configuration file :.

It is a list of instructions, such as "permit" or "reject", that the server will apply in this order to received e-mails. Later on, you may want to look at aliases used to forward e-mails or virtual e-mail addresses used to create mailboxes not tied to a Unix account , both of which are described in the Debian Wiki page for Postfix. On my machine, it was:. To configure the SSL certificates, open ssl. By default, dovecot SSL support in Debian 11 is enabled.

By default, the postmaster email address would be postmaster yourdomain. So, if you want to receive the postmaster email at admin yourdomain. We are not going to use a subdomain to access PostfixAdmin through a web browser, we will use an Apache alias instead. After adding the line to config. The setup password you created earlier is required to create a superadmin.