From: Keith Matthews (postfixfrequentous.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jul 02 2005 - 08:42:11 CDT

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On Sat, 2 Jul 2005 08:58:33 -0400 (EDT)
bcmlswiftdsl.com.au wrote:

> Greetings,
> Firstly apologies for the newbie questions but I can't find the
> answers anywhere else (or maybe I did but I confused myself in the
> process).
>
> I have recently acquired *one* domain name which I wish to use for
> email. I have a Debian Linux system which I have installed postfix on
> (with the pcre package). I wish to have a variety of email addresses
> for the domain name (eg maccaexample.org and janeexample.org)
> without having to have actual login accounts for them on the system. I
> also don't want to have to use mysql to store account data (as I won't
> have any more than a dozen email accounts and it's therefore
> overkill).
>
> I have been trying to use virtual
> domains(http://www.postfix.org/VIRTUAL_README.html#virtual_mailbox\)
> with limited (none) success. I believe it would have been appropriate

It is appropriate if you do not want mail users to have shell accounts
on the mail server, the number of domains is a different matter.

It *may* be appropriate if even if you do let mail users have shell
accounts if you want them to be able to access their mail without making
a shell level access.

> if I had multiple domains on the one host (But I don't.. Possibly I
> may add more in the future...). It is also complicated because I can't
> specify my real domain name in main.cf "mydestination = domain.org"
> because it has to be in virtual_mailbox_domains" and thus leaves my
> server identifying itself to other mta's by it's "mydestination" LAN
> hostname (eg puppy.LAN). I haven't got all this working yet and am
> beginning to think it is not the best way to meet my objectives.
>

You can force postfix to use a specific name independent of the domain
name by specifying 'myhostname' . Just ensure you don't specify the same
domain in 'mydestination'.

> I have tried to find some pointers/howto's which deal with setting up
> virtual users on one domain name without using mysql and there doesn't
> seem to be any. I have tried using bits and pieces of the but this
> being my first time with postfix it all ends in a mess. Is what I am
> trying to do possible?
>

It is possible, it may not be worth while.

You don't say how you are delivering the mail to the users. Assuming you
are using a POP3 or IMAP server then that will also need to know about
the users and where postfix is putting their mail. If you don't use
MySQL or LDAP then you are going to have to set those details in two
places, with the consequent risk of giving different information in each
place.

With MySQL I can add a new user and make it known to postfix and
Courier-imap with one sql insert statement and be sure that postfix and
courier are seeing the same details.

The one time I tried that without MySQL I had to update one Berkeley db
to tell postfix what was what then another to tell courier. I concluded
that there was less hassle in setting up the database.

In short, unless you are using a box that is badly pushed for CPU or RAM
it will be less trouble in the long run to set up MySQL.
--
I do not reply to directly addressed mail unless it is clearly a matter
that should be dealt with off-list.

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