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Cannot login after setting up mailserver with Postfix, Dovecot, MySQL, and SpamAssassin

Posted on November 1, 2019

I did every step explained in this article: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-configure-a-mail-server-using-postfix-dovecot-mysql-and-spamassassin

However, I am still not able to login within my mail application. Also I noticed, the 993 port is not open, neither is the 587 port. How can I fix this? I am using UFW as my firewall, and it has the current rules setup:

Nginx HTTPS                ALLOW       Anywhere                  
OpenSSH                    ALLOW       Anywhere                  
Postfix SMTPS              ALLOW       Anywhere                  
Dovecot Secure IMAP        ALLOW       Anywhere                  
587/tcp                    ALLOW       Anywhere                  
Nginx HTTPS (v6)           ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
OpenSSH (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
Postfix SMTPS (v6)         ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
Dovecot Secure IMAP (v6)   ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
587/tcp (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)


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Hi, just a quick note @alexdo, as you can see above from the command output he is using UFW and got his rules in there.

@FrankHeijden Since you followed the tutorial, and setup UFW etc. let’s quickly take a look if the services are running allright:

netstat -nlp | grep 587
netstat -nlp | grep 465

and since UFW is just a frontend of iptables:

iptables -L | grep imap

Hello, @FrankHeijden

You can make sure that the ports are open. You can do this with the following command:

sudo ufw allow 587
sudo ufw allow 993

For more information about UFW, please check this link: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/ufw-essentials-common-firewall-rules-and-commands

If you prefer to use just iptables:

sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 993 -m conntrack --ctstate NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --sport 993 -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

For more information about iptables you can check this link: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/iptables-essentials-common-firewall-rules-and-commands

I hope this helps!

Regards, Alex

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