Tutorial
How To Install iRedMail On Ubuntu 12.04 x64
Status: Deprecated
This article covers a version of Ubuntu that is no longer supported. If you are currently operate a server running Ubuntu 12.04, we highly recommend upgrading or migrating to a supported version of Ubuntu:
- Upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04.
- Upgrade from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04
- Migrate the server data to a supported version
Reason: Ubuntu 12.04 reached end of life (EOL) on April 28, 2017 and no longer receives security patches or updates. This guide is no longer maintained.
See Instead:
This guide might still be useful as a reference, but may not work on other Ubuntu releases. If available, we strongly recommend using a guide written for the version of Ubuntu you are using. You can use the search functionality at the top of the page to find a more recent version.
If you would like to create your own online e-mail system, you can use iRedMail. In this article, we will explain how you can do it.
Step 1 - Droplet Creation
We use a 2 CPU Core / 2GB RAM droplet with Ubuntu 12.04 x64 image.
iRedMail is currently supported on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Ubuntu 13.04, among many other distributions of Linux.
If you have a domain name you want to use, name your droplet as that domain name, which will become its hostname and reverse DNS record.
Step 2 - Create a Domain Name
For our Cloud Mail purposes, we will register a free domain, cloudmail.tk from dot.tk
Once you have your domain name registered, point it to DigitalOcean's name servers:
ns1.digitalocean.com (198.199.120.125)
ns2.digitalocean.com (141.0.170.89)
ns3.digitalocean.com (198.199.95.114)
Make sure to check those IP addresses manually, as they may have changed since the time this article was written.
Now open your Control Panel on DigitalOcean and click DNS, located under Labs section.
Click Add Domain and create a new record by pointing your new domain to your droplet's IP address:
Create a new MX record, make sure to have a trailing dot at the end of your domain name:
Add SPF records to make sure others cant spoof emails by pretending to send them from your domain.
Make sure to have "-all" in your SPF record, and point it to your droplet's IP.
The record's format would be "v=spf1 ip4:IP_ADDRESS -all"
There will be one more record to add after you have finished installing iRedMail - DKIM key.
Step 3 - iRedMail Installation
Make sure to set the hostname of your domain name, if you haven't done this during droplet creation:
wget https://bitbucket.org/zhb/iredmail/downloads/iRedMail-0.8.6.tar.bz2
tar jxvf iRedMail-0.8.6.tar.bz2 && cd iRedMail-0.8.6
hostname cloudmail.tk
bash iRedMail.sh
You are greeted with a Graphical User Interface Installer by iRedMail:
If you have several droplets, you can even use GlusterFS for distributed, replicated e-mail storage, providing further redundancy:
For backend, we chose MySQL. You can also use OpenLDAP and PostgreSQL:
Since we have registered a domain in Step 2, we will place it here:
From package selection, you can omit phpMyAdmin and Fail2Ban.
When asked whether you would like to use firewall rules provided with iRedMail, select 'No'.
Firewall rules should be custom made for each server, and adopting a DROP ruleset from iRedMail's package is not recommended.
We would also not recommend using Fail2Ban from their package, as it banned our own IP when we refreshed a page.
Reboot your droplet after completion.
All of the installation notes and logs can be found in iRedMail.tips file ( /root/iRedMail-0.8.6/iRedMail.tips ).
Here you will have information on passwords, SSL certificate locations, and DKIM records.
Add the DKIM record to DigitalOcean's DNS control panel for your domain:
Step 4 - Add SSL Certificate
Although this step is optional if you just want to use self-generated certificate, we would still recommend getting a trusted SSL certificate.
By default, iRedMail will create a self-signed certificate and store it in /etc/ssl/certs/iRedMail_CA.pem and /etc/ssl/private/iRedMail.key
We can get a free SSL certificate from InstantSSL
You would need to create a CSR and private KEY first:
cd /etc/ssl openssl req -out cloudmail.tk.csr -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout cloudmail.tk.key
This will generate 2 files: cloudmail.tk.csr (your Certificate Signing Request file), and cloudmail.tl.key (your private SSL key which should not be shared with anyone).
You would provide the CSR file (cloudmail.tk.csr) to InstantSSL during SSL request.
After they have validated your request, you will receive the certificate file (in zip format) that contains two files:
cloudmail_tk.ca-bundle (your SSL certificate bundle)
cloudmail_tk.crt (your SSL certificate)
Place both files to /etc/ssl and modify /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl
SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/cloudmail.tk.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/cloudmail.tk.key SSLCACertificateFile /etc/ssl/cloudmail.tk.ca-bundle.crt
Restart Apache
service apache2 restart
Now you should have SSL enabled, and you can proceed to logging in to iRedAdmin (https://cloudmail.tk/iredadmin/ ) with username postmaster@cloudmail.tk and password you provided during installation in Step 3.
From iRedAdmin, you can add new users, new admins, and new domains into your system:
Once you have created an e-mail account, you can access it at https://cloudmail.tk/mail/
And you are all done!
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Every thing went well until I got to the DKIM part as in my iRedMail.tips I have nothing below that to add to the txt record. it just like this :
DNS record for DKIM support:
Amavisd-new: * Configuration files:
Try this:
amavisd-new showkeys
How do I modify this to serve mail for multiple domains (they aren’t related)?
Also I tested this on wheezy with postgresql and it works
@inbox thanks that found my dkim keys. Now my problem is that i am able to send mail but not receive any email outside my server.
I have searched high and low for the answer on this. If you are setting up a subdomain as the mail server, and cannot change the name servers on a subdomain, what are the proper DNS settings for each end? I am trying to redirect the MX record to a subdomain that has an A record which is directed to the mail server. Thank you for your help!
If you would like to receive mail on subdomain, simply point root (@) MX record to subdomain, and create A type record for the subdomain’s IP address:
@ IN MX mail.domain.com mail IN A 1.2.3.4
I have it all setup, and I can log into roundcube, but when I try to send mail from roundcube I get the error:
SMTP Error (451): Failed to add recipient “myemail@gmail.com” (configuration problem).
I don’t have an SSL certificate and I received the security warning when going to the website.
Any thoughts?
Hi @anthony104889 Any luck finding a solution for this?
Fresh install on Ubuntu 14.04. Seems mysql is not connected on correct socket :$
how can we use this with multiple domains ?
how can I receive e-mails from other servers? I just can receive from local network.
pgvalentlm, you are lucky i just installed all the things finally the URL are not accessible i want to use it on my LAN network. can you please help me
Al am also suffering the same issues. I can send mails. But I can not receive mails from outside world. My RAW BIND looks like this
Raw Bind $TTL 7200 @ IN SOA ns1.digitalocean.com. hostmaster.oddsodz.com. ( 1366249495 ; last update: 2013-04-18 01:44:55 UTC 3600 ; refresh 900 ; retry 1209600 ; expire 10800 ; 3 hours ttl ) IN NS ns1.digitalocean.com. NS ns2.digitalocean.com. NS ns3.digitalocean.com.
@ IN A 198.199.75.193 @ TXT “v=spf1 ip4:IP_ADDRESS -all” dkim._domainkey TXT v=DKIM1; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQC5o7W03WtnVDb8DSGt+XCj0yH7UF712xlOGOz18fM6zAuMwLNP9/vlfUDS0fWYZDCWf8SrINx8qhFgOfmAlbMO0AZfgEt7bn1+tVrGpT15TMlPfMpJYxCVXLkZmFtxwbU6N3nfpjX2NZ3eTacVeGL84D3ueF+s4AalZHX/Agoe6wIDAQAB
but if I run “amavisd testkeys” I get
“invalid (public key: missing p= tag)”
I Am pulling hair out.
Peter,
Initially I had the issue of emails not receiving from outside, but I wait for a few hours, checked the email again and they came to my inbox. I use POP.
Regarding amavisd, you need to escape that semicolon using the backslash character. I use the following format.
dkim._domainkey TXT “v=DKIM1;t=s;n=core;p=MIGfMA0GCSqG…”
Do you mean to add the backslash in the line in the digitalocean DNS control pages for your droplets?
I’m having the same problem as many other people here. I have successfully installed iRedMail. SSL is setup and working. I can send to external email accounts. I can receive from internal email account but can not receive emails from external email accounts. Can you please look at the DNS config below and offer and suggestion as to what the problem may be?
Raw Bind $TTL 7200 @ IN SOA ns1.digitalocean.com. hostmaster.auld.us. ( 1366559900 ; last update: 2013-04-21 15:58:20 UTC 3600 ; refresh 900 ; retry 1209600 ; expire 10800 ; 3 hours ttl ) IN NS ns1.digitalocean.com. NS ns2.digitalocean.com. NS ns3.digitalocean.com.
MX 0 auld.us. @ IN A 198.211.117.61 www CNAME @ @ TXT “v=spf1 ip4:198.211.117.61 -all” dkim._domainkey TXT “v=DKIM1; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCw3WtOZ1jovcJdkFKlbrJW1CJoHr6mKDm5lIg+YSguKZMPbSE0bEmZCxD/g16PA2ArGhMwKBcEQoG6fgb71AL88S4JjyuxPtGsQeSATg14+xmTU18pqRgDutK6ojVeCwycy0pI3xSn7AjUxnXdZsAo4MlJOYJAQbCf9BvY86K2IQIDAQAB”
Many thanks to any help you can provide.
Regards … Tim.
The solution to my problem posted above, was that Greylisting was enabled in Cluebringer. I know, I had never heard of it either. There is some good information here: http://www.iredmail.org/forum/topic3162-iredmail-support-too-much-spam.html.
This also means that my DNS settings in the Raw Bind posted above are also correct, for those who might be having problems with it.
Regards … Tim.
I’m able to get and receive mail, I also added ( purchased ) a SSL certificate ::: Now when I configure Thunderbird for POP3 mail I get the following error "You are about to override how thunderbird identifies this site … " ::: I’m not able to resolve it :::
Another question : If I wanted to use mail.myserver.com , how do I go about this, I’ve tried adding a CNAME with no “luck” :::
Any Help Would be Appreciated :::
Was able to solve my “Thunderbird” certification issue ::: I loaded the wrong INTERMEDIATE cert file to my server :::
Michael, I tried making the virtual domain name mail.myserver.com but then it wanted the email address to be tim@mail.myserver.com, which I didn’t like. I’m sure I was doing something wrong. So I compromised and reference my mailbox by using myserver.com/mail and that works just fine.
Regards … Tim.
Works on Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit image; does not seem to work on Debian 6.0 64-bit image. What do I have to do? Thanks
It wasn’t an issue with the images. My Ubuntu and Debian droplets were connected to different domains, and when I tested with the same domain the mail server on the Debian image works. So maybe the problem lies with the dns configuration on that first test. So let me apologize for the last posting and confirm that these instructions work for the Debian 6.0 64 bit image.
Al am also suffering the same issues. I can send mails. But I can not receive mails from outside world. My RAW BIND looks like this
Raw Bind $TTL 7200 @ IN SOA ns1.digitalocean.com. hostmaster.oddsodz.com. ( 1366249495 ; last update: 2013-04-18 01:44:55 UTC 3600 ; refresh 900 ; retry 1209600 ; expire 10800 ; 3 hours ttl ) IN NS ns1.digitalocean.com. NS ns2.digitalocean.com. NS ns3.digitalocean.com.
@ IN A 198.199.75.193 @ TXT “v=spf1 ip4:IP_ADDRESS -all” dkim._domainkey TXT v=DKIM1; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQC5o7W03WtnVDb8DSGt+XCj0yH7UF712xlOGOz18fM6zAuMwLNP9/vlfUDS0fWYZDCWf8SrINx8qhFgOfmAlbMO0AZfgEt7bn1+tVrGpT15TMlPfMpJYxCVXLkZmFtxwbU6N3nfpjX2NZ3eTacVeGL84D3ueF+s4AalZHX/Agoe6wIDAQAB
but if I run “amavisd testkeys” I get
“invalid (public key: missing p= tag)”
I Am pulling hair out.
Peter,
Initially I had the issue of emails not receiving from outside, but I wait for a few hours, checked the email again and they came to my inbox. I use POP.
Regarding amavisd, you need to escape that semicolon using the backslash character. I use the following format.
dkim._domainkey TXT “v=DKIM1;t=s;n=core;p=MIGfMA0GCSqG…”
Do you mean to add the backslash in the line in the digitalocean DNS control pages for your droplets?
I’m having the same problem as many other people here. I have successfully installed iRedMail. SSL is setup and working. I can send to external email accounts. I can receive from internal email account but can not receive emails from external email accounts. Can you please look at the DNS config below and offer and suggestion as to what the problem may be?
Raw Bind $TTL 7200 @ IN SOA ns1.digitalocean.com. hostmaster.auld.us. ( 1366559900 ; last update: 2013-04-21 15:58:20 UTC 3600 ; refresh 900 ; retry 1209600 ; expire 10800 ; 3 hours ttl ) IN NS ns1.digitalocean.com. NS ns2.digitalocean.com. NS ns3.digitalocean.com.
MX 0 auld.us. @ IN A 198.211.117.61 www CNAME @ @ TXT “v=spf1 ip4:198.211.117.61 -all” dkim._domainkey TXT “v=DKIM1; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCw3WtOZ1jovcJdkFKlbrJW1CJoHr6mKDm5lIg+YSguKZMPbSE0bEmZCxD/g16PA2ArGhMwKBcEQoG6fgb71AL88S4JjyuxPtGsQeSATg14+xmTU18pqRgDutK6ojVeCwycy0pI3xSn7AjUxnXdZsAo4MlJOYJAQbCf9BvY86K2IQIDAQAB”
Many thanks to any help you can provide.
Regards … Tim.
The solution to my problem posted above, was that Greylisting was enabled in Cluebringer. I know, I had never heard of it either. There is some good information here: http://www.iredmail.org/forum/topic3162-iredmail-support-too-much-spam.html.
This also means that my DNS settings in the Raw Bind posted above are also correct, for those who might be having problems with it.
Regards … Tim.
I’m able to get and receive mail, I also added ( purchased ) a SSL certificate ::: Now when I configure Thunderbird for POP3 mail I get the following error "You are about to override how thunderbird identifies this site … " ::: I’m not able to resolve it :::
Another question : If I wanted to use mail.myserver.com , how do I go about this, I’ve tried adding a CNAME with no “luck” :::
Any Help Would be Appreciated :::
Was able to solve my “Thunderbird” certification issue ::: I loaded the wrong INTERMEDIATE cert file to my server :::
Michael, I tried making the virtual domain name mail.myserver.com but then it wanted the email address to be tim@mail.myserver.com, which I didn’t like. I’m sure I was doing something wrong. So I compromised and reference my mailbox by using myserver.com/mail and that works just fine.
Regards … Tim.
Works on Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit image; does not seem to work on Debian 6.0 64-bit image. What do I have to do? Thanks
It wasn’t an issue with the images. My Ubuntu and Debian droplets were connected to different domains, and when I tested with the same domain the mail server on the Debian image works. So maybe the problem lies with the dns configuration on that first test. So let me apologize for the last posting and confirm that these instructions work for the Debian 6.0 64 bit image.
After following the tutorial and reading some of the comments made, I have been able to successfully install and have it work ‘properly’. I am able to both send/receive mail from the webmail (https) and imap email client (ssl). Although, on every email that is sent or received, I get the following errors while tailing mail.log.
[status] amavis[1118]: (01118-01) (!)connect to /tmp/clamd.socket failed, attempt #1: Can’t connect to UNIX socket /tmp/clamd.socket: No such file or directory amavis[1118]: (01118-01) (!)connect to /tmp/clamd.socket failed, attempt #1: Can’t connect to UNIX socket /tmp/clamd.socket: No such file or directory amavis[1118]: (01118-01) (!)ClamAV-clamd: All attempts (1) failed connecting to /tmp/clamd.socket, retrying (2) amavis[1118]: (01118-01) (!)connect to /tmp/clamd.socket failed, attempt #1: Can’t connect to UNIX socket /tmp/clamd.socket: No such file or directory amavis[1118]: (01118-01) (!)ClamAV-clamd av-scanner FAILED: run_av error: Too many retries to talk to /tmp/clamd.socket (All attempts (1) failed connecting to /tmp/clamd.socket) at (eval 114) line 603.\n amavis[1118]: (01118-01) (!)WARN: all primary virus scanners failed, considering backups amavis[1118]: (01118-01) (!)ClamAV-clamscan av-scanner FAILED: /usr/bin/clamscan KILLED, signal 9 (0009) at (eval 114) line 899. amavis[1118]: (01118-01) (!!)AV: ALL VIRUS SCANNERS FAILED [/status]
Any suggestions?
David, which distro are you running? Locate /etc/clamd.conf and make sure you have this line “LocalSocket /tmp/clamd.socket” then run “service clamd start” - and if its CentOS: “chkconfig clamd on”
Am I s’pose to delete all the quotes plus merge the charecters into one line before I copy / paste this DKIM record into DNS TXT record?
Thanks for your attention,
(what I copy and pasted) “v=DKIM1; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCxYMAU6R0BRyOjx+Nq8stTGOBNUV3K7qVhO/1ZsXjQvIqzZmugkLgqEwXv1U7aUI8r4NEc+bMsqhjlwDvD+7yUH5EoVUOiAnF5Cqwquh/jl7QHe3+F1CHXQ+AwdSocBJUUjnt5uqN1tP/yT193rPyX7v/pZthmtorVjkdyFLhIKwIDAQAB”
(what I received from PuTTY when I typed in “amavisd-new showkeys”) dkim._domainkey.magew.com. 3600 TXT ( “v=DKIM1; p=” “MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCxYMAU6R0BRyOjx+Nq8stTGOBN” “UV3K7qVhO/1ZsXjQvIqzZmugkLgqEwXv1U7aUI8r4NEc+bMsqhjlwDvD+7yUH5Eo” “VUOiAnF5Cqwquh/jl7QHe3+F1CHXQ+AwdSocBJUUjnt5uqN1tP/yT193rPyX7v/p” “ZthmtorVjkdyFLhIKwIDAQAB”)
bee tee dubelyou - during tut, I came across error saying I need to install most recent version
replace “0.8.3” with “0.8.4”
(update list) https://bitbucket.org/zhb/iredmail/downloads/
almost positive this is the answer (found it above) for dkim format – YIKES!
dkim._domainkey TXT “v=DKIM1;t=s;n=core;p=MIGfMA0GCSqG…”
I Install iRedMail and when I try to access https://xxxxxx/mail/ I get the following error
DATABASE ERROR: CONNECTION FAILED!
Unable to connect to the database! Please contact your server-administrator.
How do I fix it?
@denis.beganovic is MySQL running? service mysql status
Yes MySQL running. Problem solved by re-creating the droplet. The error was in setting password for database admins.
I’ve been reading that a few people are running into issues with not being able to receive mail… I’m running into this issue as well.
I can send file, but I can’t receive.
How is everyone solving this?
Thanks!
The best place to look to solve errors is often the mail logs; they can often detail why your server is rejecting mail.
You could also check your doamins MX records to make sure they are set correctly, or even on another droplet send mail to the destination server and see what the sending server’s logs say about its attempt to deliver mail.
If you comment out the lines in /etc/postfix/main.cf at the end that have to do amavis then “service postfix restart” you’re probably in business. That’s what I used to get it up and going, but there will be no spam filtering happening. It’s a workaround.
The First Virtual Domain Name should not be the same as the Hostname of the Server. The method shown here is wrong.
Also I would recommend that you should install fail2ban. The problem specified here (ban when refreshing webpage) is because of the Tutorial Author’s fail2ban configuration. We can always change the configuration easily, when such problem arises.
add multiple domain just add the domain at DNS add the MX domainname.com 0 add the domain name and user at iredadmin as well
I have followed this tutorial and iredmail and everything is working fine. BUT, when i want to reach my webpage now, whenever i enter www.kitzcloud.tk i got redirectet do the https://kitzcloud.tk/mail iRedmail :-( how can i change that?
I have followed above tutorial and able to send mails to all the domains like yahoo,gmail and works very fast.But i am not able to receive any of the mails from external domains.Internal virtual domains works fine.Even when i send mail from gmail,it says that "message sent " and no bouncing errors.trying to fix it from last two days but no luck…Any idea to fix it?
bernhard.obermoser try Open up the SSL config file: sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default
Change the port on the virtual host to 80, not the default SSL port: <VirtualHost *:80>
@yenyan45: I had bad luck, the default config already points to port 80, so i still have the same problem, i enter my domain darkthrone.tk and i arrive at the ssl roundcube login… i also found out, that i cant recieve emails but send mails
iRedMail enables greylisting by default, it causes email delay. Visit http://greylisting.org/ for more details. Check /var/log/mail.log to see if the email actually arrived. If it is in the log, just give sometime to pass the greylisting. Better find solution on iRedMail online forum http://www.iredmail.org/forum
@raviprasad: That’s greylisting. It is the best way to Prevent Spams. Better than a Spam Filter like gmail.
Hello,
I have successfully installed as followed on the instructions. Sending and receiving seem fine but why I got this on the header when sending email to gmail “dkim=neutral (bad format)” . Though checking my dkim using this link http://www.protodave.com/tools/dkim-key-checker/ was successful.
Any ideas why I got this?
Regards, Rocel
@michael what’s your domain name?
i dont know what i did wrong but after this tutorial my main url goes directly to https://www..pw/mail/ instead of http://www..pw/index.html
@vicentevrl: It’s supposed to redirect to /mail - you should install iRedMail on preferably a separate droplet or a separate subdomain.
@vicentevrl: iRedMail created a file named index.html in directory, so you have to replace it by your old one. Hope it helps!
I’m having the same problem as @vicentevrl however my index.html is untouched. HTTPS forwards to domain.com/mail. This is now occurring to all domains on the server.
@jfgodin: Please take a look at this iRedMail forum thread: http://www.iredmail.org/forum/topic4266-iredmail-support-page-redirect.html
I recommend asking in the official iRedMail forums.
If you are getting errors - amavis[29137]: (!)Net::Server: 2013/07/23-09:41:54 Couldn’t fork: [Cannot allocate memory] at /usr/share/perl5/Net/Server/Daemonize.pm line 182.\n\n at line 164 in file /usr/share/perl5/Net/Server.pm you will need to enable Swap partitions on ubuntu - https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-add-swap-on-ubuntu-12-04
example.com/mail and I get this, what can I do?
When I installed, It didnt asked me anything about configuring mysql or anything
DATABASE ERROR: CONNECTION FAILED!
Unable to connect to the database! Please contact your server-administrator
@germanab7: Did you install iRedMail on a pre-existing droplet or a fresh new one?
Kamal tks for you answer.
More questions I installed it on a fresh new one but I don’t know what happened, then I destroyed the droplet and redid everything and it worked fine, but I had some other questions
1.-Should the hostname be the same as the domain? if it’s the same does it have conflict with redmail? 2.-And when I install iRedMail should I install it without LAMP and any other package? or whats the recommendation 3.- How should it look the etc/hosts, should I add the MY droplet IP below? or in the same I just enter my info 127.0.0.1 mx.example.com demo localhost localhost.localdomain
Tks