Home / server / Questions / 331981
In Process
Cem
Asked: 2011-11-18 06:38:14 +0800 CST

Where to set catch-all address in Postfix (virtual mailboxes in affect)

  • 772

I successfully configured Postfix to deliver messages to virtual mailboxes.

I can set aliases and pipes inside /etc/postfix/virtual and mailboxes inside /etc/postfix/virtual_mailbox files.

However, whenever I set a catch-all domain and point to a remote email address, it overrides all other virtual mailboxes and virtual aliases set in postfix. How can I set a catch-all forwarding to the remote email address when virtual mailbox is enabled?

I set catch-all like this:

@mydomain.com     [email protected]

Thanks for your help!

linux postfix

2 Answers

  1. The catchall should be in the virtual_alias_maps file (in your case /etc/postfix/virtual) and not in the virtual_mailbox file.

    Take a look here, search the page for Mail forwarding domains and you'll find this example:

    1 /etc/postfix/main.cf:
2     virtual_alias_domains = example.com ...other hosted domains...
3     virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual
4 
5 /etc/postfix/virtual:
6     [email protected] postmaster
7     [email protected]        joe@somewhere
8     [email protected]       jane@somewhere-else
9     # Uncomment entry below to implement a catch-all address
10     # @example.com         jim@yet-another-site
11     ...virtual aliases for more domains...
    • 3

  2. To us the simplest solution was giving THREE entries for virtual_alias_maps, they are executed in order until the first match eg.

    /etc/postfix/main.cf:
virtual_alias_maps = 
    hash:/etc/postfix/virtual, 
    proxy:ldap:/etc/postfix/ldap/virtual_mail_exist_maps.cf, 
    hash:/etc/postfix/virtual_after_ldap

    The first entry is a 'classic' local file virtual, it may forward from .com to .net domain if you need something like this, eg.

    /etc/postfix/virtual:
    @mydomain.com @mydomain.net

    The second entry is a database, sql or ldap or anything else. When an account matches, postfix serves exactly the mail it was queried for and exits here - successfully forwarding the mail to more or less itself (postfix logic :))

    /etc/postfix/ldap/virtual_mail_exist_maps.cf
     server_host     = x
     server_port     = x
     ...
     result_format   = %s

    The third entry is another simple local file. Postfix will do lookups here only if the database lookups do not succeed, here you can place your catch-all address

    /etc/postfix/virtual_after_ldap
    @mydomain.net postmaster
    • 0