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lurscher
Asked: 2011-06-08 14:15:37 +0800 CST

add email account to postfix for user not existent on machine

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Postfix seems that uses the system users to define email accounts, i'm wondering if there is an alternate method to create accounts? i want to add email users that do not belong to the system and cannot shell to the server

thanks

postfix email-server ubuntu-10.10

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You need to look at virtual mailboxes. The storing and location of these is normally simple enough, but accessing them becomes the question. Where to store user authentication details, what do to about aliases etc. Sometimes people use MySQL, PostgreSQL, LDAP backends etc.

    The example virtual mailbox domain in the link above gives you everything you need to know about the Postfix configuration. After that, it's about how you access those mails (webmail, IMAP, POP3 etc.)

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  2. You could also create a local user account with a non-login shell, so that you have a fairly basic place to store password and full name without allowing shell access. Some use a shell of /bin/false or the like for this. This would generally be my preference, assuming your pop/imap type server can handle such a shell (which it should).

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  3. If you want a quick fix take a look at /etc/aliases (don't forget to run newaliases if you do use this!) - it's somewhat limited and isn't intended for anything beyond a handful aliases. Anything more than that and I'd strongly suggest looking at virtual mailboxes with a backend as suggested.

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