QMAIL HOW TO
I. Qmail Installation
A. INSTALLATION
A.1. Software Pre-requisites
1. Linux Operating System
2.Apache Web Server
3.Perl –any version of 5
4.GCC – the gcc compiler
5. wget – use for downloading installers
6. patch & patchutils -
Access to a domain name server (DNS) is highly recommended.
A.2 Download the source
Download the necessary installers for setting up the qmail, download the source code for qmail and any other add-ons.
• qmail, http://www.qmail.org/netqmail-1.05.tar.gz
• ucspi-tcp, ftp://cr.yp.to/ucspi-tcp/ucspi-tcp-0.88.tar.gz
• daemontools, ftp://cr.yp.to/daemontools/daemontools-0.76.tar.gz
for e.g.
# wget http://www.qmail.org/netqmail-1.05.tar.gz
You can put all of installers on a certain directory for e.g. /home/darwin
A.3. Build the source
A.3.1 Switch user as root and do these:
su
umask 022
mkdir -p /usr/local/src (if not yet existing)
mv netqmail-1.05.tar.gz ucspi-tcp-0.88.tar.gz /usr/local/src
mkdir -p /package
mv daemontools-0.76.tar.gz /package
chmod 1755 /package
A.3.2 Unpack the packages
cd /usr/local/src
tar zxvf netqmail-1.05.tar.gz
cd netqmail-1.05
./collate.sh # watch for errors here
cd ..
tar zxvf ucspi-tcp-0.88.tar.gz
cd /package
tar zxvf daemontools-0.76.tar.gz
A.3.3 Create directories
mkdir /var/qmail
A.3.4 Create users and groups
cd /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/netqmail-1.05
You can check the INSTALL.ids to setup qmail groups and users, to make it easy you just copy these commands
groupadd nofiles
useradd -g nofiles -d /var/qmail/alias alias
useradd -g nofiles -d /var/qmail qmaild
useradd -g nofiles -d /var/qmail qmaill
useradd -g nofiles -d /var/qmail qmailp
groupadd qmail
useradd -g qmail -d /var/qmail qmailq
useradd -g qmail -d /var/qmail qmailr
useradd -g qmail -d /var/qmail qmails
A.3.5 Do the build
cd /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/netqmail-1.05
make setup check
./config-fast the.full.hostname(for ex. ./config-fast phi.freelinuxtutorials.com)
A.4 Install ucspi-tcp
cd /usr/local/src/ucspi-tcp-0.88
patch < /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/other-patches/ucspi-tcp-0.88.errno.patch
make
make setup check
A.5 Install daemontools
cd /package/admin/daemontools-0.76
cd src
patch < /usr/local/src/netqmail-1.05/other-patches/daemontools-0.76.errno.patch
cd ..
package/install
A.6 Start qmail
A.6.1 Use an editor to create /var/qmail/rc script
vi /var/qmail/rc and then use this script:
#!/bin/sh
# Using stdout for logging
# Using control/defaultdelivery from qmail-local to deliver messages by default
exec env – PATH=”/var/qmail/bin:$PATH” \
qmail-start “`cat /var/qmail/control/defaultdelivery`”
A.6.2 Execute these commands:
chmod 755 /var/qmail/rc
mkdir /var/log/qmail
A.6.3 Create a default delivery mode for messages that aren’t delivered by a .qmail file. Type:
echo ./Maildir/ >/var/qmail/control/defaultdelivery
A.7 Create a startup/shutdown script like the following in /var/qmail/bin/qmailctl
#!/bin/sh
# For Red Hat chkconfig
# chkconfig: – 80 30
# description: the qmail MTA
PATH=/var/qmail/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin
export PATH
QMAILDUID=`id -u qmaild`
NOFILESGID=`id -g qmaild`
case “$1″ in
start)
echo “Starting qmail”
if svok /service/qmail-send ; then
svc -u /service/qmail-send /service/qmail-send/log
else
echo “qmail-send supervise not running”
fi
if svok /service/qmail-smtpd ; then
svc -u /service/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd/log
else
echo “qmail-smtpd supervise not running”
fi
if svok /service/qmail-pop3d ; then
svc -u /service/qmail-pop3d /service/qmail-pop3d/log
else
echo “qmail-pop3d supervise not running”
fi
if [ -d /var/lock/subsys ]; then
touch /var/lock/subsys/qmail
fi
;;
stop)
echo “Stopping qmail…”
echo “ qmail-smtpd”
svc -d /service/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd/log
echo “ qmail-send”
svc -d /service/qmail-send /service/qmail-send/log
echo “ qmail-pop3d”
svc -d /service/qmail-pop3d /service/qmail-pop3d/log
if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/qmail ]; then
rm /var/lock/subsys/qmail
fi
;;
stat)
svstat /service/qmail-send
svstat /service/qmail-send/log
svstat /service/qmail-smtpd
svstat /service/qmail-smtpd/log
svstat /service/qmail-pop3d
svstat /service/qmail-pop3d/log
qmail-qstat
;;
doqueue|alrm|flush)
echo “Flushing timeout table and sending ALRM signal to qmail-send.”
/var/qmail/bin/qmail-tcpok
svc -a /service/qmail-send
;;
queue)
qmail-qstat
qmail-qread
;;
reload|hup)
echo “Sending HUP signal to qmail-send.”
svc -h /service/qmail-send
;;
pause)
echo “Pausing qmail-send”
svc -p /service/qmail-send
echo “Pausing qmail-smtpd”
svc -p /service/qmail-smtpd
echo “Pausing qmail-pop3d”
svc -p /service/qmail-pop3d
;;
cont)
echo “Continuing qmail-send”
svc -c /service/qmail-send
echo “Continuing qmail-smtpd”
svc -c /service/qmail-smtpd
echo “Continuing qmail-pop3d”
svc -c /service/qmail-pop3d
;;
restart)
echo “Restarting qmail:”
echo “* Stopping qmail-smtpd.”
svc -d /service/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd/log
echo “* Sending qmail-send SIGTERM and restarting.”
svc -t /service/qmail-send /service/qmail-send/log
echo “* Restarting qmail-smtpd.”
svc -u /service/qmail-smtpd /service/qmail-smtpd/log
echo “* Restarting qmail-pop3d.”
svc -t /service/qmail-pop3d /service/qmail-pop3d/log
;;
cdb)
tcprules /etc/tcp.smtp.cdb /etc/tcp.smtp.tmp < /etc/tcp.smtp
chmod 644 /etc/tcp.smtp.cdb
echo “Reloaded /etc/tcp.smtp.”
tcprules /etc/tcp.pop3.cdb /etc/tcp.pop3.tmp < /etc/tcp.pop3
chmod 644 /etc/tcp.pop3.cdb
echo “Reloaded /etc/tcp.pop3.”
;;
help)
cat <<HELP
stop — stops mail service (smtp connections refused, nothing goes out)
start — starts mail service (smtp connection accepted, mail can go out)
pause — temporarily stops mail service (connections accepted, nothing leaves)
cont — continues paused mail service
stat — displays status of mail service
cdb — rebuild the tcpserver cdb file for smtp
restart — stops and restarts smtp, sends qmail-send a TERM & restarts it
doqueue — schedules queued messages for immediate delivery
reload — sends qmail-send HUP, rereading locals and virtualdomains
queue — shows status of queue
alrm — same as doqueue
flush — same as doqueue
hup — same as reload
HELP
;;
*)
echo “Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|doqueue|flush|reload|stat|pause|cont|cdb|queue|help}”
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0
This script is available via http://www.lifewithqmail.org/qmailctl-script-dt70
A.7.1 Make the qmailctl script executable and link it to a directory in your path:
chmod 755 /var/qmail/bin/qmailctl
ln -s /var/qmail/bin/qmailctl /usr/bin
A.8 The supervise scripts
A.8.1 Now create the supervise directories for the qmail services:
mkdir -p /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/log
mkdir -p /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/log
A.8.2. Create the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/run file:
#!/bin/sh
exec /var/qmail/rc
A.8.3 Create the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/log/run file:
#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/local/bin/setuidgid qmaill /usr/local/bin/multilog t /var/log/qmail
A.8.4 Create the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/run file:
#!/bin/sh
QMAILDUID=`id -u qmaild`
NOFILESGID=`id -g qmaild`
MAXSMTPD=`cat /var/qmail/control/concurrencyincoming`
LOCAL=`head -1 /var/qmail/control/me`
if [ -z “$QMAILDUID” -o -z “$NOFILESGID” -o -z “$MAXSMTPD” -o -z “$LOCAL” ]; then
echo QMAILDUID, NOFILESGID, MAXSMTPD, or LOCAL is unset in
echo /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/run
exit 1
fi
if [ ! -f /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts ]; then
echo “No /var/qmail/control/rcpthosts!”
echo “Refusing to start SMTP listener because it’ll create an open relay”
exit 1
fi
exec /usr/local/bin/softlimit -m 2000000 \
/usr/local/bin/tcpserver -v -R -l “$LOCAL” -x /etc/tcp.smtp.cdb -c “$MAXSMTPD” \
-u “$QMAILDUID” -g “$NOFILESGID” 0 smtp /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd 2>&1
A.8.5 Create the concurrencyincoming control file:
echo 20 > /var/qmail/control/concurrencyincoming
chmod 644 /var/qmail/control/concurrencyincoming
A.8.6 Create the /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/log/run file:
#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/local/bin/setuidgid qmaill /usr/local/bin/multilog t /var/log/qmail/smtpd
A.8.7 Make the run files executable:
chmod 755 /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/run
chmod 755 /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send/log/run
chmod 755 /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/run
chmod 755 /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd/log/run
Then set up the log directories:
mkdir -p /var/log/qmail/smtpd
chown qmaill /var/log/qmail /var/log/qmail/smtpd
Finally, link the supervise directories into /service:
ln -s /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-send /var/qmail/supervise/qmail-smtpd /service
The /service directory is created when daemontools is installed.
A.8.8 SMTP Access Control
Allow the local host to inject mail via SMTP:
echo ‘127.:allow,RELAYCLIENT=””‘ >>/etc/tcp.smtp
qmailctl cdb
You can add here IP address that will allow to relay to outside domain. These entries ensure that your mail server is not an open relay.
A.9 Stop and disable the installed MTA
If you’re using an RPM-based Linux distribution like Red Hat, removing the MTA package might cause problems down the road. Utilities that update the system might try to reinstall Sendmail, or MUA packages might not install because they can’t tell an MTA is installed. You can use Mate Wierdl’s stub package called “fake_mta” that can be installed to prevent these problems. Simply install the RPM available from http://www.csi.hu/mw/fake_mta-1-1memphis.noarch.rpm.
A.9.1 Download the said rpm and install the package
rpm –ivh fake_mta-1-1memphis.noarch.rpm
If your existing MTA is Sendmail, you should be able to stop it by
running the init.d script with the “stop” argument. E.g., one of
these should work:
/etc/init.d/sendmail stop
/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop
/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail stop
kill PID¬of¬sendmail
rpm ¬e ¬¬nodeps sendmail
Lastly, replace any existing /usr/lib/sendmail with the qmail version:
mv /usr/lib/sendmail /usr/lib/sendmail.old # ignore errors
mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail.old # ignore errors
chmod 0 /usr/lib/sendmail.old /usr/sbin/sendmail.old # ignore errors
ln -s /var/qmail/bin/sendmail /usr/lib
ln -s /var/qmail/bin/sendmail /usr/sbin
A.10 Create System Aliases
There are three system aliases that should be created on all qmail installations:
Alias Purpose
postmaster RFC 2821 required, points to the mail adminstrator (you)
mailer-daemon de facto standard recipient for some bounces
root redirects mail from privileged account to the system administrator
To create these aliases, decide where you want each of them to go (a local user or a remote address) and create and populate the appropriate .qmail files. For example, say local user dave is both the system and mail administrator:
echo darwin > /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-root
echo darwin > /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-postmaster
ln -s .qmail-postmaster /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-mailer-daemon
chmod 644 /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-root /var/qmail/alias/.qmail-postmaster
A.11 Start qmail
If you stopped qmail above after creating the links in /service, you should restart it now:
qmailctl start
A.12 Test the Installation
qmail should now be running. First run qmailctl stat to verify that the services are up and running:
# qmailctl stat
/service/qmail-send: up (pid 30303) 187 seconds
/service/qmail-send/log: up (pid 30304) 187 seconds
/service/qmail-smtpd: up (pid 30305) 187 seconds
/service/qmail-smtpd/log: up (pid 30308) 187 seconds
messages in queue: 0
messages in queue but not yet preprocessed: 0
All four services should be “up” for more than a second. If they’re not, you’ve probably got a typo in the associated run script or you skipped one or more steps in creating the necessary files, directories, or links. Go back through the installation step-by-step and double check your work. You can also download and run the inst_check script, available from http://lifewithqmail.org/inst_check. For example:
# sh inst_check
! /var/log/qmail has wrong owner, should be qmaill
…try: chown qmaill /var/log/qmail
#
If inst_check finds problems, fix them and re-run it. When everything looks right, inst_check will report:
Congratulations, your LWQ installation looks good!
B. Configuration
You’ve got qmail installed, from the recommended source tarball method, one of the self-compiling packages, or a var-qmail package. This section contains information you will need to configure qmail to make it work the way you want it to.
B.1. Configuration Files
All of qmail’s system configuration files, with the exception of the .qmail files in ~alias, reside in /var/qmail/control. The qmail-control man page contains a table like the following:
Control Default Used by Purpose
badmailfrom none qmail-smtpd blacklisted From addresses
bouncefrom MAILER-DAEMON qmail-send username of bounce sender
bouncehost me qmail-send hostname of bounce sender
concurrencyincoming none /service/qmail-smtpd/run max simultaneous incoming SMTP connections
concurrencylocal 10 qmail-send max simultaneous local deliveries
concurrencyremote 20 qmail-send max simultaneous remote deliveries
defaultdelivery none /var/qmail/rc default .qmail file
defaultdomain me qmail-inject default domain name
defaulthost me qmail-inject default host name
databytes 0 qmail-smtpd max number of bytes in message (0=no limit)
doublebouncehost me qmail-send host name of double bounce sender
doublebounceto postmaster qmail-send user to receive double bounces
envnoathost me qmail-send default domain for addresses without “@”
helohost me qmail-remote host name used in SMTP HELO command
idhost me qmail-inject host name for Message-ID’s
localiphost me qmail-smtpd name substituted for local IP address
locals me qmail-send domains that we deliver locally
me FQDN of system various default for many control files
morercpthosts none qmail-smtpd secondary rcpthosts database
percenthack none qmail-send domains that can use “%”-style relaying
plusdomain me qmail-inject domain substituted for trailing “+”
qmqpservers none qmail-qmqpc IP addresses of QMQP servers
queuelifetime 604800 qmail-send seconds a message can remain in queue
rcpthosts none qmail-smtpd domains that we accept mail for
smtpgreeting me qmail-smtpd SMTP greeting message
smtproutes none qmail-remote artificial SMTP routes
timeoutconnect 60 qmail-remote how long, in seconds, to wait for SMTP connection
timeoutremote 1200 qmail-remote how long, in seconds, to wait for remote server
timeoutsmtpd 1200 qmail-smtpd how long, in seconds, to wait for SMTP client
virtualdomains none qmail-send virtual domains and users
Sample PHI MAIL SERVER CONFIGURATION
badmailfrom:
FROM_USER@netmail.nl
@*.service.ohio-state.edu
@4cpp.net
@8hy.cn
@aidscare.com.hk
@bbqgirl.com
concurrencyincoming
20
defaultdelivery
./Maildir
defaultdomain
phmx1.freelinuxtutorials.com
helohost
phi.freelinuxtutorials.com
locals
phmx1.freelinuxtutorials.com
me
phmx1.freelinuxtutorials.com
plusdomain
freelinuxtutorials.com
queuelifetime
172800
rcpthosts
phmx1.freelinuxtutorials.com
freelinuxtutorials.com
hkpub.com
mail.freelinuxtutorials.com
mail.hkpub.com
phi.freelinuxtutorials.com
virtualdomains
phi.freelinuxtutorials.com:phi.freelinuxtutorials.com
II. INSTALLING VPOPMAIL
Vpopmail is one of the major components of this installation. Vpopmail allows us to do virtual domain mail hosting. It’s got a lot of built in tools and features that make it a dream to work with
B. 1 Download the installer of vpopmail on http://www.inter7.com/
C. Unpack/uncompress the tarball file
tar zxvf vpopmail-5.4.0.tar.gz
cd vpopmail-5.4.0
# ./configure
# make
# make install-strip
1.Now you are ready to add a virtual domain and users
#cd /home/vpopmail/bin
#./vadddomain phi.freelinuxtutorials.com password yourpostmasterpassword
2.To add a new pop users
You can install qmailadmin and administer your new pop mail
system via a web interface. Or you can use the command line
interface.
# cd /home-dir-of-vpopmail/bin
# ./vadduser newuser@test.com
or
# ./vadduser newuser@test.com <password-for-newuser>
3.Delete a pop user
# cd /home-dir-of-vpopmail/bin
# ./vdeluser newuser@test.com (for the test.com virtualdomain example)
4.Delete a virtual domain
# cd /home-dir-of-vpopmail/bin
# ./vdeldomain test.com
5.Changing a pop users password (new in 3.4.3)
# cd /home-dir-of-vpopmail/bin
# ./vpasswd user@domain.com
or
# ./vpasswd user@domain.com <password-for-user@domain.com>
III. INSTALLING QMAILADMIN
qmailAdmin is a free software package that provides a web interface for managing a qmail system with virtual domains. A version is available now for use with vpopmail. It provides admin for adding/deleting users, Aliases, Forwards, Mailing lists and Autoresponders.
Requirements:
Qmail
Vpopmail
Autorespond 2.0 (or greater)
Ezmlm or Ezmlm-idx
Installing Autoresponder
Download the installer on http://www.inter7.com
tar zxvf autorespond-2.0.2.tar.gz
cd autorespond-2.0.2
make && make install
Installing Ezmlm
EZmlm is a nice mailing list add-on to Qmail
EZmlm integrates seamlessly into Qmailadmin to provide a very user friendly mailing list management interface
Download the installer on http://www.inter7.com
tar zxvf ezmlm-0.53-idx-0.41.tar.gz
cd ezmlm-0.53-idx-0.41
make && make setup
Install qmailadmin
Download the installer on http://www.inter7.com
Type as root:
tar zxvf qmailadmin-1.2.0.tar.gz
cd qmailadmin-1.2.0
./configure –enable-modify-quota
# make
# make install-strip
That’s it! Now browse to http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/qmailadmin and you should see the login screen. Login with the postmaster account and password for the domain that you created
If you didn’t get any errors, Qmailadmin should be all set!
IV. INSTALLING SQWEBMAIL
Sqwebmail is a web based email client, similar to hotmail. It is extremely efficient and the html is configurable. It is compatible with vpopmail
Note: SqWebMail DOES NOT support traditional Mailbox files, only Maildirs
Download the installer on http://www.inter7.com or directly on http://www.courier-mta.org/sqwebmail/
Unpack:
# tar xvf sqwebmail-4.0.4.20040524.tar
#./configure [options - see below]
# make configure-check
# make
# make check
# make install-strip # Do a make install if this doesn’t work
# make install-configure # Install configuration files.
You can now access sqwebmail http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/sqwebmail
BACKING UP QMAIL SERVER
Backing up a qmail server is relatively easy. While different people may give you slightly different recommendations, you can ensure a safe backup of your qmail server if you backup the following 2 directories on a routine basis.
/home/vpopmail – backs up all your domain information, including mailboxes, passwords and the messages themselves.
/var/qmail – backs up all of your qmail settings. The /var/qmail/control directory is the most important directory in there to back up, but it won’t hurt to just back up the whole damn qmail directory.
For complete documentations, pls refer to:
Reference: http://www.lifewithqmail.org
http://www.qmailrocks.org
http://www.inter7.com/
Reference: http://www.freelinuxtutorials.com/tutorials/qmail-how-to/
