Need Help Setting Up Mail on Ubuntu Server

stefanwray's picture
Posted by stefanwray on May 20, 2009 at 2:57pm

We could use some help to set up mail on our Ubuntu server. It's been recommended that we set up POSIX, although it's not clear that this is absolutely essential. The Ubuntu server has Drupal and CiviCRM. The main purposes for mail right now is for users getting password confirmations, for people to send us mail through the contact form, and eventually for sending users other types of notifications. We have CiviCRM but are using Constant Contact right now. We may switch to using CiviMail. So we may increase the way we use mail on the server in the future. We're looking for the best advice as to which type of mail program we should install (i.e. should it be POSIX or something else?) and then we're looking for help in getting it working properly. This should be simple enough, but we did run into some errors when attempting to install mail programs before. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks.

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You shouldn't need a mail server

Posted by darrick on May 20, 2009 at 4:21pm
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You are only sending mail. Sending mail from Ubuntu works out of the box. POSIX is a specification and Linux is POSIX compliant and is beside the point. I believe Drupal delivers mail via the cron job. So make sure that is setup correctly. You can also install the Messaging and Notification modules if you want finer control.

You also might want to look at using a smart host to relay mail through if your server is behind a firewall or if the rDNS is not setup correctly. Maybe this link will help:

http://borisbrodsky.com/2007/12/ubuntu-relay-email-server-thro-11.html

You can still install your mail server for added flexibility. I suggest Postfix. Unless you are a masochist, then use sendmail. Keep in mind:

  • The ip of the hostname of your server must resolve back to the same hostname. I.e for us mail.davismedia.org resolves to 168.150.251.204 and 168.150.251.204 points back to mail.davismedia.org.

Postfix is what I meant

Posted by stefanwray on May 20, 2009 at 4:33pm
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Thanks Darrick, Postfix is what I meant, not POSIX.

RE: Need Help Setting Up Mail on Ubuntu Server

Posted by jhauser14905 on May 20, 2009 at 4:50pm
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stefan, take a look at http://howtoforge.com.

they usually have cut and paste instructions that work. just make sure the
version of ubuntu matches yours, or package names may have changed between releases.

here are a couple of articles that may help.
http://howtoforge.com/drupal-plus-postfix-integration-under-ubuntu-8.04

http://howtoforge.com/virtual-users-domains-postfix-courier-mysql-squirr...

but it depends on how fancy you want to get.

http://howtoforge.com/howtos/email/postfix groups all of their articles on posfix together in one place.

Thought about 3rd party mail relay?

Posted by coderdan on May 20, 2009 at 6:29pm
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This isn't the solution for everyone, but since we send out quite a bit of email it sounded good for us at PCM.

Our CiviCRM contractor, RAsantiago, suggested that we use a 3rd party to relay our mail for us. The reason behind this was that sending bulk messages out of CiviMail could put a strain on our mail server, as well as potential for getting our IP blocked.

We setup an account at DNSexit.com that will cost us about $300 this year, and they will be relaying all of our external mail for us. I haven't tested it out myself, but RA recommended it. I'll share more on this after our Civi cut is done and we are fully using it.

You can also use your current mail server

Posted by PetePO on May 21, 2009 at 9:28pm
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If you want to bypass the PHPmail functions of your drupal site it might be worth looking at http://drupal.org/project/smtp to have your drupal instance hook into your existing mail server as well...

best options

Posted by stefanwray on June 3, 2009 at 5:42pm
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I am trying to figure out which is best to use of these 4 possibilities:

* Postfix
* Exim
* qmail
* Sendmail

article recommends exim

Posted by stefanwray on June 3, 2009 at 5:54pm
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http://lwn.net/Articles/196724/

CiviCRM MailServer Resolution?

Posted by synchlayer on August 28, 2009 at 5:26pm
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Hey Stefan et al, did you ever resolve this, did you hire someone, or is there a walk through you ended up using?

This is the only part of CiviCRM I’ve had issues with, and the only thing left to configure. Basically I can send emails through CiviCRM as tests, even to whole groups, but it won’t send them when I finalize them

At the moment the only thing that works is if I go here after every mailing:

http://YOUR_URL/index.php?q=civicrm/mailing/queue&reset=1

I wrote several Cron Jobs, but then noticed the "Mail Accounts” page was blank, so am wondering what I need to set up and then how to fill this out: http://YOUR_URL/civicrm/admin/mailSettings?action=update&id=1&reset=1

Cheers
C