Quick-n-dirty Postfix and Dovecot setup for an internal notification server

Two of my least-favorite open source products are Postfix and anything that interfaces with it. I use Postfix and Dovecot extensively and still find new annoyances with both of them. My major gripe is the lack of a simple package in Ubuntu that simply asks questions and then automatically does stuff based on the answers to set up a working mail server.

The objective of this post is to show a simple setup of Postfix and Dovecot for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to enable command-line scripts on a box on a local network to send e-mail to itself and then retrieve those e-mails over POP3 using a normal e-mail client. This is NOT a full-blown e-mail server setup. It is a notification message drop with POP3 access. The e-mail client will only be able to retrieve e-mails from the box (not send them), which completely eliminates the possibility of the box accidentally turning into a remote mail relay.

First, install Postfix and Dovecot:

sudo apt-get install postfix
sudo apt-get install dovecot-pop3d

(I don't recommend the 'mail-stack-delivery' package. It includes IMAP support, which I'm not a fan of for something so basic. Only install the packages you need. I installed 'mail-stack-delivery' and decided it wasn't the right choice and cleaning up the garbage it left behind took longer than it should have.)

Next, set up a user account for handling the e-mails:

sudo adduser cronmail

Name the account to be whatever you want.

Edit '/etc/postfix/main.cf'. Change these options:

inet_interfaces = 127.0.0.1
mailbox_command = /usr/lib/dovecot/dovecot-lda -f "$SENDER" -a "$RECIPIENT"

That isolates SMTP to localhost only access and routes incoming messages to Dovecot. That last part is important or there will be major hair-pulling as messages get routed to the wrong place.

Next, verify the Dovecot configuration with 'dovecot -n'. If anything is off, visit '/etc/dovecot/conf.d/' and use grep to find the offending bits.

Restart Postfix and Dovecot:

sudo postfix reload
sudo restart dovecot

Now verify that only the ports you want open are open and that SMTP is only available on 127.0.0.1:

sudo netstat -anpt

Once you are satisfied, set up your e-mail client and use the new user you set up (cronmail@yourservername).

Finally, send an e-mail to the new e-mail account. If you use the Ultimate E-mail Toolkit, it is important to remember to disable the DNS lookup via 'usedns':

$headers = SMTP::GetUserAgent("Thunderbird");

$options = array(
 "headers" => $headers,
 "textmessage" => $message . "\n\nSent by [yourservername]",
 "server" => "localhost",
 "secure" => false,
 "usedns" => false,
 "username" => "cronmail"
 "password" => "*******"
);

SMTP::SendEmail("cronmail@yourservername", "cronmail@yourservername", "[yourservername] Some Notification", $options);

And that's it! Hopefully this saves someone a few hours. It isn't a full-blown mail server.