Tutorial

How To Install and Setup Postfix on Ubuntu 12.04

Published on January 3, 2013

How To Install and Setup Postfix on Ubuntu 12.04

Status: Deprecated

This article covers a version of Ubuntu that is no longer supported. If you are currently operate a server running Ubuntu 12.04, we highly recommend upgrading or migrating to a supported version of Ubuntu:

Reason: Ubuntu 12.04 reached end of life (EOL) on April 28, 2017 and no longer receives security patches or updates. This guide is no longer maintained.

See Instead:
This guide might still be useful as a reference, but may not work on other Ubuntu releases. If available, we strongly recommend using a guide written for the version of Ubuntu you are using. You can use the search functionality at the top of the page to find a more recent version.

About Postfix

Postfix is a free, open source Mail Transfer Agent which works to route and deliver email.

Prerequisites

Before installing Postfix, you will need to have a Fully Qualified Domain Name pointing to the server that you will be using.

You can find instructions on that here:How to Set Up a Host Name with DigitalOcean

Install Postfix

Postfix can easily be installed through apt-get:

sudo apt-get install postfix

During the installation, you will see a dialogue box appear, asking you which kind of installation you would prefer. Select “Internet Site”.

Follow up by entering the name of your domain.

Once Postfix is installed there are a few steps that need to be taken before it is fully functional.

Configure Postfix

Once Postfix is installed, go ahead and open the main configuration file.

sudo nano /etc/postfix/main.cf

There are a few changes that should be made in this file.

myhostname = example.com

Put in name of your domain into myhostname.

If you want to have mail forwarded to other domains, replace alias_maps with virtual_alias_maps and point it to /etc/postfix/virtual.

virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual

The rest of the entries are described below

mydestination defines the domains that postfix is going to serve, in this case—localhost and your domain (eg. example.com). relayhost can be left, as is the default, empty.

mynetworks defines who can use the mail server. This should be set to local—creating an open mail server is asking for SPAM. This will usually have damaging effects on your server and may put you in line for discipline from your web hosting provider.

If it is not set up by default, as it should be, make sure you have the following text on that line:

mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128

The rest of the lines are set by default. Save, exit, and reload the configuration file to put your changes into effect:

sudo /etc/init.d/postfix reload

Configure Additional Emails

To redirect emails to specific emails, you can add users to the alias file. By default each user on the server will be able to read emails directed to their username@domain-name.com.

Open up the the alias database:

sudo nano /etc/postfix/virtual

Within that file, enter in the names of your users. For example:

sales@example.com username1
me@example.com username2

Once you are finished, save, exit, and run the following command:

postmap /etc/postfix/virtual

The last step is to reload postfix once more.

sudo /etc/init.d/postfix reload

Conclusion

Once Postfix is installed, mail can be sent to and from the server, although without a mail server like Dovecot or Cyrus, you will only be able to see the email on the server.

You send out email from the command line with the command “sendmail” and where you want the mail sent to:

sendmail sample-email@example.org

Once you enter the command, type your message, and when it is completed, you can send it off with ctrl-D

Incoming mail gets delivered into /var/mail/username

By Etel Sverdlov

Thanks for learning with the DigitalOcean Community. Check out our offerings for compute, storage, networking, and managed databases.

Learn more about our products

About the author(s)

Etel Sverdlov

See author profile

Category:

Tutorial

Tags:

Ubuntu

DNS

Still looking for an answer?

Ask a question Search for more help

Was this helpful?

30 Comments

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

adambehman • January 20, 2013

awesome! It worked! thank you. Might want to add “sudo” in the postfix reload section’s and at postmap command. what would you recommend to take it to the next level? Jump into Dovecot?

thanks again

d4171561d8ad68770b35687ce1033d • February 19, 2013

+1 for a tutorial explaining how to add Dovecot to Ubuntu (12.10 ?)

In my case for example, I would have multiple aliases on multiple domains hosted on the VPS. Would be great to learn how to install Dovecot to have each domain get its mail delivered in its own folder. Thanks!

marcushann6 • February 24, 2013

Hi,

I have followed this tutorial and now want to setup SMTP access, how do I do this?

Thanks

contact50454 • March 10, 2013

Hi. Thanks for this tutorial. Sending went ok, but I am not receiving any email. Question: I have firewall setup as in your security tutorial. Do I have to make changes to it to receive the emails sent to me? Thanks.

contact50454 • March 10, 2013

Nevermind previous comment. I added a rule to the firewall to allow port 25 and now everything works perfectly.

If wou followed the tutorial on iptables firewall then the steps to add port 25 are:

Find out the number of the last line with DROP everything else (mine was no. 8):
sudo iptables -L -n –line-numbers
Replace it with port 25 accept: sudo iptables -R INPUT 8 -p tcp –dport 25 -j ACCEPT
Readd the DROP rule: sudo iptables -A INPUT -j DROP
Save iptables configuration sudo /etc/init.d/iptables-persistent save
Reload Postfix: sudo /etc/init.d/postfix reload

BTW: sudo apt-get install alpine OR mutt will give you the console email client. Brings up memories. :)

craig79485 • March 28, 2013

If you are using Google Public DNS in /etc/resolv.conf which is the default, you will need to change it as Spamhaus does not work with Google Public DNS servers.

quatermain32 • April 4, 2013

Which IP addresses I can use instead defaults(8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4) in resolf.conf? Because I can only send e-mails, not receive

local8 • May 10, 2013

comcast rejects www-data in from name, how to change?

Kamal Nasser

DigitalOcean Employee

• May 10, 2013

@Oliver Kriska You can use Level 3’s DNS servers: 209.244.0.3 and 209.244.0.4. @local8 You can pass the From: header in your email in the following format:

From: Name e@ma.il or From: e@ma.il

titelskibreg • May 12, 2013

Hi, how to resolve issue with “root” mail? After postfix installed no mail is delivered to root anymore instead it goes to user “nobody”

Kamal Nasser

DigitalOcean Employee

• May 13, 2013

@titelskibreg: http://hypert.info/mac/postfix.html please see the “To enable email for the root account:” section.

quatermain32 • May 15, 2013

@Kamal: thank you, dns work, but I can not receive emails. Maybe I have problem with my dns settings. My questions in your forum: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/only-send-e-mail-with-iredmail-on-ubuntu

me28323 • June 3, 2013

It worked, thanks now reading https://help.ubuntu.com/12.10/serverguide/dovecot-server.html for dovecot installation…

lancewf • July 4, 2013

Thank you for the tutorial it worked great.

agentofkaos • July 6, 2013

A few tips on installing postfix and dovecot (note that I was only interested in smtps and imaps protocols):

Install package “mail-stack-delivery” (sudo apt-get install mail-stack-delivery) - selecting this package rather than separating the installs of postfix vs dovecot was the biggest win in getting it all working without so much work
Install key and certificate (I used startssl.com to create legit class 1 key) into /etc/ssl (private and certs)
Hook in keys/certs into /etc/dovecot/conf.d/01-mail-stack-delivery.conf and /etc/postfix/main.cf
In dovecot.conf and conf.d/01-mail-stack-delivery.conf, limit protocol to just the one you want: protocols = imaps
The Maildir format is already set for you which is what you want (instead of mbox format)
Uncomment the inet_listener imaps section in dovecot/conf.d/10-master.conf
Uncomment the smtps inet line and all the “-o” options for it in postfix/master.cf
Mail error/log files are at /var/log/mail.log and .err - I had tail -f running on both to chase down the last few problems (as hopefully remedied by the above instructions) Result: dovecot happily working with postfix to provide imaps and smtps

kumarmukesh722 • July 31, 2013

Hi ,

Web mail installation total guide step by step how i get. plz help me

Kamal Nasser

DigitalOcean Employee

• July 31, 2013

@kumarmukesh722: I recommend installing iRedMail, it’s easier for beginners: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-iredmail-on-ubuntu-12-04-x64

eamai007 • August 4, 2013

When I send email to one of my gmail account, the sender address shown user@domain.com but I’ve defined alias contact@domain.com user. How can I make sender address contact@domain.com?

Thanks

Kamal Nasser

DigitalOcean Employee

• August 4, 2013

@amar5326: Set the From: header to contact@domain.com. How are you sending the email?

eamai007 • August 4, 2013

@Kamal Nasser: I followed the guide. sendmail myemail@gmail.com > Enter then type messages > ctrl + D. It got delivered into my gmail inbox but the address from root@domain.com

eamai007 • August 4, 2013

Nevermind, I got it. Need -f parameter. Now, how can I setup for sending and receiving from my email client? I don’t want webmail. Do you articles for that?

Thanks.

Kamal Nasser

DigitalOcean Employee

• August 5, 2013

@amar5326: To be able to send and receive mail from your desktop email client, you’ll have to install dovecot (for IMAP) and configure it to work with postfix. Unfortunately we do not have an article on doing that at the moment. I recommend taking a look at iRedMail if you want a full-fleged mail server: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-iredmail-on-ubuntu-12-04-x64

felixjohnson • August 17, 2013

Hello fellows, trying to install Postfix, came to the first screen where it says ‘Package Configuration’ I just cant go any further. Nothing to click and nothing to do. Cant even press enter to select OK. What can I do?

felixjohnson • August 17, 2013

How do I install Dovekot?

Kamal Nasser

DigitalOcean Employee

• August 17, 2013

@felix.johnson: Were you able to install Postfix?

You can install dovecot by running the following command:

<pre>apt-get install dovecot-imapd dovecot-pop3d</pre>

Configuration: http://wiki2.dovecot.org/BasicConfiguration

nguyentienjobs • August 30, 2013

Dear. I am looping at:

/etc/init.d/postfix reload