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I'm setting up Dovecot and postfix for the first time, and I'm a little stuck. I'm sharing a virtual server with a few other people and I want a separate user account file (passwd file) for each domain, so that everyone can administer their email accounts themselves. I've created a directory for each domain in the /srv/mail directory, and put a passwd file inside.

I've set up Dovecot as follows. I believe the important parts are the userdb and passdb sections, but I've included the rest because I'm not entirely sure.

# 1.2.1: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# OS: Linux 2.6.18.8-x86_64-linode7 x86_64  ext3
ssl_cert_file: /etc/ssl/certs/mail.crt
ssl_key_file: /etc/ssl/private/mail.key
login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable: /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login
login_user: mail
mail_access_groups: mail
mail_location: maildir:/srv/mail/%d/%n
imap_client_workarounds: delay-newmail tb-extra-mailbox-sep
auth default:
  mechanisms: plain login
  passdb:
    driver: passwd-file
    args: username_format=%n /srv/mail/%d/passwd
  userdb:
    driver: passwd-file
    args: username_format=%n /srv/mail/%d/passwd
  socket:
    type: listen
    client:
      path: /var/run/dovecot/auth-client
      mode: 432
      user: mail
      group: mail

This isn't exactly working - I can connect, but I can't retrieve mail. I have a feeling it's to do with the lack of mail directories, but I have no idea how to convince Dovecot to create those.

I also want to set up postfix to send and receive email using the same user accounts, and notify dovecot that new mail is coming in. I found a guide using Google that told me to insert this into the config file:

smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_unauth_destination

This sort of makes sense to me. I can't find anything, however, on using a different passwd file for each domain. Can anyone assist me with this?

Thanks.

-- Samir.

1 Answer 1

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  1. Dovecot doesn't create mailboxes; Postfix does that on mail receipt. If you want mailboxes up-front, it's best to send a test message to new mail accounts as they're created.
  2. You don't have to explicitly tell Postfix about the multiple password files; smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot tells Postfix to pass all authentication requests to Dovecot's passwork auth subsystem, which knows what it has to do.
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  • Awesome. This has been on hold for a few days, but I'll mess around with it and see what happens soon. Nov 6, 2009 at 12:40

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