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Mail server alternatives

RafaelT

RafaelT

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 9, 2010
1,169
15
NM
Please correct me if I am wrong but the built in mail server seems a little bit limited in functionality. Each mail user needs an actual account on the server which does not fit what I am trying to do.

I have a few different domains and need a few different email address at each of the domains.

Is there a good free or low cost alternative mail server that is easy to administer out there?


Thanks
 
For anyone trying to configure Mail with multiple domains and users on Lion...

good luck...

It took me a day and a half but I finally did it. I had to work around multiple bugs in Lion Server, Workgroup manager and Server Admin.

One tip. If you are adding accounts to the system to use to log in for mail do it through system preferences, not workgroup manager. Editing them in workgroup manager after they are added is fine. You will save yourself a lot of headaches.

If anyone else is trying to set up mail with multiple users and domains feel free to post here and I will pass along any useful info that I can.
 
RafaelT said:
For anyone trying to configure Mail with multiple domains and users on Lion...

good luck...

It took me a day and a half but I finally did it. I had to work around multiple bugs in Lion Server, Workgroup manager and Server Admin.

One tip. If you are adding accounts to the system to use to log in for mail do it through system preferences, not workgroup manager. Editing them in workgroup manager after they are added is fine. You will save yourself a lot of headaches.

If anyone else is trying to set up mail with multiple users and domains feel free to post here and I will pass along any useful info that I can.
Click to expand...

Rafael,
That a very interesting piece of work you have accomplished.
I was thinking if you would be more knowledgeable person in handling mail server on Lion Server.
I have a thread with questions of mine. Your suggestions and guidance would be greatly be appreciated.
Thanks,

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1191221/

I was thinking lately, if you could share some screen shots and implementation procedures and configuration information from very beginning.
 
RafaelT said:
For anyone trying to configure Mail with multiple domains and users on Lion...

good luck...

It took me a day and a half but I finally did it. I had to work around multiple bugs in Lion Server, Workgroup manager and Server Admin.

One tip. If you are adding accounts to the system to use to log in for mail do it through system preferences, not workgroup manager. Editing them in workgroup manager after they are added is fine. You will save yourself a lot of headaches.

If anyone else is trying to set up mail with multiple users and domains feel free to post here and I will pass along any useful info that I can.
Click to expand...

Please let me know what you did, cause I am stuck. I just reinstalled the system to be able to start from scratch. I have plenty experience setting up unix servers, but this is my first OSX one and it's a bitch.
 
I will get back to both of you very shortly.. let me just finish what I am working on here.
 
Adding multiple users and domains for mail on Lion Server.

First we are going to start with a very important info:

1. When you INITIALLY ADD USERS so that they can log in to the server to check mail you MUST do it through SYSTEM PREFERENCES. There appears to be a bug in Workgroup Manager, when users are added using that, I was not able to get them to log in via an email client.

2. You need to download Server Admin Tools. Server Admin and Workgroup Manager are key to getting things going.

3. There are a few different ways to accomplish the tasks that I outline below. I HIGHLY recommend at least for this .0 release that you do it the way I did. I ran into a few bugs trying things different ways. Below is what I got to work. You will save yourself hours of frustration wondering why something that should work just is not working correctly.

Setting up Mail Server to accept mail for multiple domains:

1. Do your basic mail setup in Server. Use your default domain when you set that up. Turn it on.

2. Open Server Admin. Select your server -> Mail -> Advanced -> Hosting -> Virtual Hosting. Add your additional domains and enable that.

Ex: Add domains on the following format "moo.com" and "cow.com" would be what you want to add.

Adding Users login to your mail server:

1. Open system preferences -> Users and Groups. Add a user like you normally would.

I created users specifically for the purpose of having them use mail. You can do it differently if you would like. I created users like "mail_ted" "mail_john". These are simply users to log into the server to retrieve mail, they will not be the email addresses.

Time to configure the email addresses you would like to assign to "mail_ted" and "mail_john".

1. Open Workgroup Manager and select accounts. You will now see "mail_ted", "mail_john" and any other accounts you have. You are going to add a full email address under the short name of the account you want that email sent to.

Ex: "mail_ted" has the short names of "foo@moo.com" and "bar@cow.com" added, he will now receive email from both those addresses when he logs into his mail account using "mail_ted".

Hopefully that helps people out a little bit, any more questions please let me know. I don't claim to be some Lion Server genius, I just struggled through the for hours last night trying different things and doing a lot of goggleing.
 
Maybe I am stupid, but it keeps on rejecting to receive email for any user other than the initial administrator you create when installing OSX.

I create local user -> 550 recipient address rejected
I create network user -> 550 recipient address rejected

I have no idea what I am doing wrong.
 
Did you add the short name using the full email address?

Did you set up the virtual hosts?
 
I only have the default domain at the moment, cause I want to have it working properly first before I start migrating. But I can't even get that to work. :D
 
Got it fixed! :cool:

1) I did not have a directory server installed - I only 2 macs, so why bother? Well, as it turns out, even though it is an option during setup to not use a directory server, it doesn't seem to particularly like doing things local. At least when it comes to mail server. The mail server doesn't pick up local users other than the initially created administrator. Properly setting up a local master ldap made life a lot easier. I just added the users using the workgroup manager, added the workgroup group and adding the email address to the short names made everything working honky dory. That last step is really important.

2) Connection issues were caused by a screwed up DNS config. After the reinstall, the DNS was properly setup again and after setting the local DNS as primary in the DHCP server on my router, everything works both locally and remote.

I still think OSX Server is very un-:apple: like. Most tools needed and described in the OSX Server manual are not present until downloaded from some obscure kb article, it requires manual hacking config files through Terminal to get virtual hosts working and settings are all over the place. They make it look really simple, but unlike regular OSX which anybody can use, Server does require knowledge of servers, so at least you know where to look to fix things. They make things look easy with the Server.app, but I doubt Average Joe will be able to set this up for anything other than a 100% internal home server without real domain and incoming connections from the internet.
 
RafaelT said:
Time to configure the email addresses you would like to assign to "mail_ted" and "mail_john".

1. Open Workgroup Manager and select accounts. You will now see "mail_ted", "mail_john" and any other accounts you have. You are going to add a full email address under the short name of the account you want that email sent to.

Ex: "mail_ted" has the short names of "foo@moo.com" and "bar@cow.com" added, he will now receive email from both those addresses when he logs into his mail account using "mail_ted".
Click to expand...

Thanx RafaelT - your investigation helps me very much.
I'am just migrating from an 10.6 Server to Lion Server.
The 'old' 10.6 Server is up and running exactly as you describe it.

On my new MiniMac 10.7 Server installation I realize that »short names« entries with the @-sign can't login to the account.

This is because of dovecot-auth:
/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-auth.conf

Find the line
auth_username_format = %n
and change it to
auth_username_format = %u

Hope this helps someone else ...

- Martin
 
By the way.

Let me add to this how to configure a catch-all account (*@domain.com) to the virtual domain.

Add the domain-name to »short name« beginning with the @-sign (no space or other placeholders in front) or just name the user like this.

- Martin
 
It´s an old thread, but I really need som help here...

Can one user acces 2 different accounts? I am operating with 2 domains and I don´t want to mix e-mail messages from those domains.

Let me describe my set up. I am using Lion Server, and I have installed the server using domain1.com. I have external DNS hosting, and DNS has the following setup:
domain1.com - MX - mail.domain1.com
mail.domain1.com - A - <my IP address>

domain2.com - MX - mail.domain1.com

I am hosting multiple websites, and that is working ok. It is just the e-mail that I am struggling with.

In the server admin app, I have my server running with Mail and DNS services running. Under the general tab in Mail I have domain1.com as Domain name and mail.domain1.com as Host name. I have registrered domain2.com under advanced and Virtual hosting. My question is: Do I have to register the same person with 2 different local accounts if I want to keep the mailboxes seperated? Is there any way of keeping the mailboxes seperated by using Zones under DNS? (I really don´t know what Zones is used for).
 
einarso said:
Can one user acces 2 different accounts? I am operating with 2 domains and I don´t want to mix e-mail messages from those domains.
Click to expand...

Same question, but now for Mountain Lion Server.

Also, it's not clear whether "aliases" is the new "short names". If I put a second username in aliases, I get email at that second username. If I put user2@domain.com I get bounced.

I haven't yet enabled virtual hosting, so I'm trying this with a single domain for now. It's possible the @ gets interpreted only when a second domain exists?

Apple's help files are really inadequate on this topic and the support site hasn't gotten the memo yet that 10.8 is out.
 
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