Trouble with Read User Mail loading

Webmin
1


omega system information
SYSTEM INFORMATION     
System hostname omega (72.45.208.227)
Operating system Debian Linux 13
Time on system Sunday, July 12, 2026 12:28 PM
Kernel and CPU Linux 6.12.94+deb13-amd64 on x86_64
Processor information Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2680 v4 @ 2.40GHz, 28 cores
CPU temperatures Core 1: 33 °C Core 2: 33 °C Core 3: 33 °C Core 4: 32 °C Core 5: 32 °C Core 6: 33 °C Core 7: 32 °C Core 9: 33 °C Core 10: 32 °C Core 11: 32 °C Core 12: 32 °C Core 13: 33 °C Core 14: 32 °C Core 15: 32 °C
System uptime 11 days, 2 hours, 04 minutes
Running processes 404
CPU load averages 0.25 (1 min) 0.35 (5 mins) 0.32 (15 mins)
Real memory 35.73 GiB used / 116.52 GiB cached / 188.58 GiB total
Virtual memory 0 bytes used / 191.87 GiB total
Local disk space 1.25 TiB used / 20.38 TiB free / 21.64 TiB total
Package updates All installed packages are up to date
SOFTWARE VERSIONS       
Webmin version 2.651
Usermin version 2.550
Virtualmin version 8.1.0 Professional
Authentic theme version 26.50.2
Perl version 5.040001
Path to Perl /usr/bin/perl
Python version 3.13.5
Path to Python /bin/python3.13
BIND version 9.20.23
Postfix version 3.10.12
Mail injection command /usr/lib/sendmail -t
Apache version 2.4.68
PHP versions 8.4.23
Logrotate version 3.22.0
MariaDB version 11.8.6
SpamAssassin version 4.0.1
ClamAV version 1.4.3
VIRTUALMIN COUNTS        
Virtual servers 9
DNS domains 9
Websites 9
Websites SSL 9
Website aliases 0
Mail domains 4
Databases 4
Mail/FTP users 24
Mail aliases 49

This is on one of my newest servers, where I decided to set it up with Debian instead of Ubuntu like my older servers. The feature was working, until it wasn’t. I don’t use it that often, so it’s not a big deal. Lately, I’ve been using the Tools → File Manager to open older mails I wanted to look at.

The first error message it threw was
Failed to open /root/Maildir/cur : No such file or directory.

Today I finally tried a few things with the configuration but didn’t find anything that seemed related. For the hell of it I added {Maildir/cur, Maildir/new, Maildir/tmp} to Root’s root folder. The first error message was replaced by this one,
Failed to open /usr/sbin/Maildir/cur : No such file or directory.

I tried the same thing as I did with Root, and now I have this one,
Failed to open /bin/Maildir/cur : No such file or directory. :flushed_face:
THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A BAD PATTERN I’M FOLLOWING :grimacing:

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I’m thinking it’s related to Debian having an accessible root login as opposed to the Ubuntu way because I never saw this error before trying Debian.

2

I’m not sure that Debian handles the mail for root the same way. I aliased root to my main mail box a long time ago.

OK. I think it is in the mbox format.
Do you show mail if you type mail at the command line? Ctl D to quit.

3

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Or do you want me trying at the console?

4

I’m a little sleepy, so there’s that, but I think I remembered the main activity of the before and after Read User Main going wonky.

For the first domain imported into the virginal Virtualmin system freshly installed onto a fresh Debian 13 was created mostly from scratch. I added the domain through the VM interface, and manually created the extra email addresses with that domain’s user management. Then I would zip the contents of the old servers cur, new, & tmp then with file manager unzip them in the new servers appropriate corresponding folders. I only used the import facility for databases.

The second domain import was limited, but I let it bring in email accounts automatically among other things. It could be possible that weird old into new had some stray bullets on the campfire frying pan.

5

Debian is using root as a system account outside of Virtualmin. At least that’s how it looks on my system. You need to alias root to another user with a postfix box.

root@main:/etc# cat aliases |head -14
# /etc/aliases
mailer-daemon: postmaster
postmaster: root
nobody: root
hostmaster: root
usenet: root
news: root
webmaster: root
www: root
ftp: root
abuse: root
noc: root
security: root
root: mit@xxxxxxxxx.com

Then run newaliases

6

Purely conjecture. As a default you need to have a mechanism for root messages being delivered. I’m guessing Debian is holding onto some pretty ancient, lightweight, customization code to ensure there is a defalut way of delivering mail to root. I think Debian uses Exim4 as the default and actually still uses the old mbox format. At least that’s how it is on my Debian 13. That puts the default root mailbox outside of the Virtualmin ‘read mail’ function.