New accounts in Debian have no corresponding mail inbox file in /var/mail

Question

I can't for the life of me understand why all of a sudden no mailboxes are being created for new accounts on my Debian server. The mailbox files are usually located in /var/mail

I create a user by typing in the following command:

useradd -md /home/fred fred

As far as I can remember, this was all that was needed.

Is there something right under my nose that I am missing ?

I am using Postfix and Dovecot on this box.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You have to add mailuser from postfixadmin. After that you cant add alies to system users.

Answer 2

the mail spool file will be created when the first email comes in.. useradd will not add the file

Answer 3

In Debian (Lenny), there is a config file named /etc/default/useradd. Have a look in there. At the bottom of my local copy, I see this:

# Defines whether the mail spool should be created while
# creating the account
# CREATE_MAIL_SPOOL=yes

Check whether your copy has that setting commented the same as mine does. If so, uncommenting it should get useradd to behave the way you want.