User unknown in virtual alias table

Virtualmin
1

I have just re-installed Postfix after giving up with Sendmail. Sendmail is completely removed from the system (Ubuntu) and Virtualmin reports that it is set up to use Postfix. But, I am getting the ‘User unknown in virtual alias table’ bounce back report.

Not sure what I’m doing wrong. Help!

2

As you move from Sendmail to Postfix, your users wouldn’t be automatically migrated… there’s a file “/etc/postfix/virtual” that would contain a list of the various users setup on your server.

Also, your hostname needs to be listed on the “mydestination” line in /etc/postfix/main.cf.

-Eric

3

Yes, I’ve checked and I have those configured correctly. I can send emails to virtual domains where I am forwading the email to another address. But, it won’t accept those emails that should map to a local mailbox. That’s when I get the bounce back ‘User unknown in virtual alias table’.

4

If you’ve set “myorigin”, it will break delivery in about 99% of virtual hosting cases (everybody always sets it incorrectly). Leaving it unset will allow postfix to set it automatically (correctly). I don’t have any reason to think this is your problem, except that it is such a common mistake.

Beyond that, you’re going to need to give us some relevant maillog entries, and your main.cf. The bounces could be caused by a damned near infinite variety of misconfigurations.

5

I removed the myorigin statement and that has stopped the bounce messages. But the email still does not arrive in the local mailbox. It arrives and disappears

Here is a log showing the report when it received an email:

Nov 17 11:40:02 ns1 postfix/pickup[31699]: 3AA94DA73A: uid=116 from=
Nov 17 11:40:02 ns1 postfix/cleanup[32431]: 3AA94DA73A: message-id=20091117114002.3AA94DA73A@myhostname
Nov 17 11:40:02 ns1 postfix/qmgr[28742]: 3AA94DA73A: from=smmsp@myhostname, size=655, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Nov 17 11:40:03 ns1 postfix/local[32433]: 3AA94DA73A: to=justin@myhostname, orig_to=, relay=local, delay=1.6, delays=0.17/0.06/0/1.3, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered to command: /usr/bin/procmail-wrapper -o -a $DOMAIN -d $LOGNAME)
Nov 17 11:40:03 ns1 postfix/qmgr[28742]: 3AA94DA73A: removed

Seems that it gets delivered to Procmail and removed from the queue. Maybe Procmail not behaving itself? Here are the Procmail statements:

LOGFILE=/var/log/procmail.log
TRAP=/etc/webmin/virtual-server/procmail-logger.pl
:0wi
VIRTUALMIN=|/etc/webmin/virtual-server/lookup-domain.pl $LOGNAME
:0

  • ?/usr/bin/test “$VIRTUALMIN” != “”
    {
    INCLUDERC=/etc/webmin/virtual-server/procmail/$VIRTUALMIN
    }
    DEFAULT=/var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME
    ORGMAIL=/var/spool/mail/$LOGNAME
    DROPPRIVS=yes
    :0
    $DEFAULT
6

Howdy,

Well, procmail should actually be logging everything it’s doing – you can see that log in /var/log/procmail.log.

However, the “DEFAULT” and “ORGMAIL” lines above look suspect, as they’re typically pointing to “$HOME/Maildir/”.

-Eric

7

Thanks Eric, Postfix / Procmail now working correctly. Yes, those procmail lines were inherited from the previous Sendmail install.