Confused about email!

I have created a new Virtual host. There is a “server administrator” (user name is domain.com). I need mail delivered to the mail box and also forwarded to an external address. And that looks all set up nicely in Virtualmin. In “Virtual server administration user’s mailbox details” the mail options all check out.

But if I login to Usermin for that account and select the “forward email” option, I see “Email forwarding enabled = no” and “also deliver mail normally” is greyed out with ‘no’ selected. That can’t be right, can it?

It can be right actually. :slight_smile: The forwarding options you set in Vmin create Postfix “Virtual Domain” entries that apply before the mail gets delivered to the local mailbox. If you’re interested in the bells and whistles there: check the Webmin Postfix module, section “Virtual Domains”.

What you set in Usermin gets - additionally - applied after, or rather replacing local delivery. That part is realized through a user-local Procmail config file (".procmailrc" in the user’s home directory).

It sounds a bit complicated - that’s Postfix forya. :wink:

Many thx for the explanation Locutus.

Good to know the functionality is working. Having said that, I am working with Virtualmin as a front-end for my clients - who wouldn’t even know what Postfix is, let alone Procmail! And I’m finding a few examples like this where I just know I’m going to be pestered by some of these clients who will see it as inconsistent and confusing. (Just as I have pestered you! :wink: )

It should (ideally) just “do what it says on the tin”. If forwarding to address X is configured, then I would suggest (strongly!) that this fact should be displayed consistently across all screens. If it’s not, then I’d humbly suggest it’s a bug. At the very least it should be labelled so that users get a clue. E.g. “pre-processing forwarding” and “post-processing forwarding” or some such. (But then the question arises - why have options for two geeky ways of doing it when one will suffice?)

Well yeah, in a perfect world, all intricacies of the Postfix config should probably be reflected by the Virtualmin scripts and screens. :slight_smile: Yet Postfix is too complex to accomplish that.

As for the instance at hand: It may be a bit confusing that those two sets of options are separate from each other, yeah. You might request a clarifying entry in the help page (if there isn’t any - have you checked that?) from the developers.

“One will suffice”: Not completely. E.g. Spam filtering will not be applied to forwardings you create in Virtualmin, since those Postfix commands are executed before Procmail has a chance to call SpamAssassin. That’s a caveat I fell for too btw. :slight_smile:

Ah…Now that’s interesting. So we have options for forwarding with and without filtering. Very handy.

I think this should be explained and promoted as a feature, as a benefit (my Plesk panel did not have these options). Instead - purely for lack of wording - I’d say it becomes a problem! It has the appearance of a bug. That’s a bit of a shame really.

What’s the right thing for me to do here? Just hope the developers will notice, agree and implement the change? Or is it best to submit this as an “issue”?

You can always submit it as a “feature request”, or, if you feel that way, a bug report. Those can be filed (and are welcome) in the issue tracker by anyone, also GPL users.

Before you do so, please note that some of the globally configured email forwarding/sorting options, like whether spam is filtered or where it is sorted, also appears in the Usermin procmail rules list. But probably not all of them, that’s right. Haven’t yet checked that in detail.

You know I think I see the solution for me…

All I need do is edit Webmin >> Usermin >> Available modules and disable mail forwarding & replies. That leaves the server owner in charge of mail account management (forwarding for accounts + autoresponders), but takes away the option I found confusing from mail account users.

All is well with the world!

Yep, you can do that. Though that will also disable spam/virus checking before forward.