Postfix Mail

This may have already been asked, so I’m sorry in advance, but I didn’t find it.

I want to know why postfix or virtualmin has to make 2 users when it creates a mailbox for a domain, such as bob@mydomain.com? It makes bob@mydomain.com and bob-mydomain.com. Why does it do that? Since it makes the bob@mydomain.com why can’t it send the mail to that account? why is it set up in the virtual file to give mail sent to bob@mydomain.com to bob-mydomain.com? I think that is a little repetitive don’t you?

Does this happen if you use Qmail? I know it doesn’t when you set up Plesk. I wan’t to know if I can change a setting or something to fix this.

Thanks, in advance.

John Carlson

Hey John,

This is in the FAQ:

http://www.virtualmin.com/faq/one-faq?faq_id=1511#51230

In short, @ in mailbox usernames can be a source of mail routing trouble, and so the author of postfix refuses to deliver to them. So, we workaround it (both the refusal of postfix to deliver, and the routing troubles that Wietse wanted to prevent…so it’s actually a better solution than supporting them in the mail server, with some caveats) by creating two users. You should never have to worry about them–they should just work (and if they don’t, file a bug about it).

Qmail and Sendmail do not need the second user, as they will deliver to a user with @ in the name. Both have their own problems, as mail servers go, but we do support them, if you prefer. (But if you’re only reason for preferring them is @ in the username, I’d recommend thinking about it some more before switching.)

the reason being that I want this is, users are used to it. Every other cpanel system uses the @ symbol. like cpanel, plesk and so on. I think that it is just more uniform that way. why would you want to have the e-mail address of bob@mydomain.com and then have the username bob-mydomain.com or whatever way you decide to use it.

don’t get me wrong I can see your reasoning but I just think that this is a better way for users. also have you thought about using exim? that is what cpanel uses… and I have found that to be a very reliable server. and Plesk uses Qmail.

I’m not making any suggestions either way… I am just saying that to keep it uniform to other control panel users this seems smart.

My understanding is that the second account should be transparent to your users. They can log in using the "@" symbol and not need to know what is going on behind the scenes. If you are having trouble with these logins, then that is a separate issue that needs to be resolved.

yeah… when I login it doesn’t login to the same account… if I have mail sitting in bob-mydomain.com and I login to webmail with bob@mydomain.com, I don’t see the mail.

maybe this is a squirrel mail problem, not sure… and then it wouldn’t let me login with a mail client (thunderbird)… not sure what that problem was though…

again, thanks in advance.

John,

What server are you using for the POP3 service?
What about the IMAP service?

Thunderbird uses POP3 or IMAP (and other things).
Squirrelmail uses IMAP.

-Phillip

I use dovecote

Hmm. Are the home directories for bob-mydomain.com and bob@mydomain.com the same?

To check, do this:
cat /etc/passwd | grep mydomain.com | grep bob

-Phillip

Hey John,

Switch to using Maildir. If your mail spool is in /var/spool/mail or wherever you’ll see the problem you’ve described (there are ways around it, but Maildir is a better spool format anyway).