Creating a mail server on Linux powered machines can be one of the most essential things that every system administrator needs to do while configuring the servers for the first time, if you don’t know what it means; it’s simple, if you have a website like “example.com”, you can create an email account like “[email protected]” to use it to send/receive emails easily instead of using services like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc.
In this article, we’ll learn how to do so by installing the Postfix mail server with the “Roundcube” webmail application and its dependencies on Debian 10/9 and Ubuntu 20.04/18.04/16.04 LTS releases.
On this page
- Set a Hostname and Create DNS Records for Mail Domain
- Installing Apache, MariaDB, and PHP on Ubuntu
- Installing Postfix Mail Server on Ubuntu
- Testing Postfix Mail Server on Ubuntu
- Installing Dovecot IMAP and POP in Ubuntu
- Installing Roundcube Webmail in Ubuntu
- Create an Apache Virtual Host for Roundcube Webmail
- Creating Mail Users to Access Mails via Roundcube
Step 1: Set a Hostname and Create DNS Records for Domain
1. First, set a valid FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) hostname for your Ubuntu server using the hostnamectl command as shown.
$ sudo hostnamectl set-hostname mail.tecmint.com
2. Next, you need to add a MX
and A
records for your domain in your DNS control panel that guides other MTAs that your mail server mail.yourdomain.com
domain is responsible for email delivery.
MX record @ mail.tecmint.com mail.tecmint.com <IP-address>
Step 2: Installing Apache, MariaDB, and PHP on Ubuntu
3. In order to create a running mail server using “Roundcube”, we’ll have to install Apache2, MariaDB, and PHP packages first, to do so, run.
$ sudo apt-get update -y $ sudo apt-get upgrade -y $ sudo apt install apache2 apache2-utils mariadb-server mariadb-client php7.4 libapache2-mod-php7.4 php7.4-mysql php-net-ldap2 php-net-ldap3 php-imagick php7.4-common php7.4-gd php7.4-imap php7.4-json php7.4-curl php7.4-zip php7.4-xml php7.4-mbstring php7.4-bz2 php7.4-intl php7.4-gmp php-net-smtp php-mail-mime php-net-idna2 mailutils
On Debian 10/9, you need to download and install the SURY PHP PPA repository to install PHP 7.4 on Debian 10/9 as shown.
$ sudo apt -y install lsb-release apt-transport-https ca-certificates $ sudo wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg $ echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list $ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install apache2 apache2-utils mariadb-server mariadb-client php7.4 libapache2-mod-php7.4 php7.4-mysql php-net-ldap2 php-net-ldap3 php-imagick php7.4-common php7.4-gd php7.4-imap php7.4-json php7.4-curl php7.4-zip php7.4-xml php7.4-mbstring php7.4-bz2 php7.4-intl php7.4-gmp php-net-smtp php-mail-mime php-net-idna2 mailutils
Step 3: Installing Postfix Mail Server on Ubuntu
4. Postfix is a mail transfer agent (MTA) which is the responsible software for delivering & receiving emails, it’s essential in order to create a complete mail server.
To install it on Ubuntu/Debian or even Mint, run:
$ sudo apt-get install postfix
During installation, you will be asked to choose the type of mail configuration, choose “Internet Site”.

5. Now enter the fully qualified domain name that you want to use for send and receive emails.

6. Once Postfix installed, it will automatically start and creates a new /etc/postfix/main.cf file. You can verify the Postfix version and status of the service using the following commands.
$ postconf mail_version $ sudo systemctl status postfix

Step 4: Testing Postfix Mail Server on Ubuntu
7. Now try to check your mail server is connecting on port 25 using the following command.
$ telnet gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com 25 Trying 74.125.200.27... Connected to gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com. Escape character is '^]'. 220 mx.google.com ESMTP k12si849250plk.430 - gsmtp
The above message indicates that the connection is successfully established. Type quit to close the connection.
8. You can also use a mail program to send and read emails using the following command.
$ mail [email protected] Cc: Subject: Testing My Postfix Mail Server I'm sending this email using the postfix mail server from Ubuntu machine
Step 5: Installing Dovecot IMAP and POP in Ubuntu
9. Dovecot is a mail delivery agent (MDA), it delivers the emails from/to the mail server, to install it, run the following command.
$ sudo apt-get install dovecot-imapd dovecot-pop3d

10. Next, restart the Dovecot service using the following command.
$ sudo systemctl restart dovecot OR $ sudo service dovecot restart

Step 6: Installing Roundcube Webmail in Ubuntu
11. Roundcube is the webmail server that you’ll be using to manage emails on your server, it has a simple web interface to do the job, it can be customized by installing more modules & themes.
$ wget https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/releases/download/1.4.8/roundcubemail-1.4.8.tar.gz $ tar -xvf roundcubemail-1.4.8.tar.gz $ sudo mv roundcubemail-1.4.8 /var/www/html/roundcubemail $ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/roundcubemail/ $ sudo chmod 755 -R /var/www/html/roundcubemail/
12. Next, you need to create a new database and user for Roundcube and grant all permission to a new user to write to the database.
$ sudo mysql -u root MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE roundcube DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci; MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER [email protected] IDENTIFIED BY 'password'; MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON roundcube.* TO [email protected]; MariaDB [(none)]> flush privileges; MariaDB [(none)]> quit;
13. Next, import the initial tables to the Roundcube database.
$ sudo mysql roundcube < /var/www/html/roundcubemail/SQL/mysql.initial.sql
Step 7: Create an Apache Virtual Host for Roundcube Webmail
14. Create an apache virtual host for Roundcube webmail.
$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/roundcube.conf
Add the following configuration in it.
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerName tecmint.com DocumentRoot /var/www/html/roundcubemail/ ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/roundcube_error.log CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/roundcube_access.log combined <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All </Directory> <Directory /var/www/html/roundcubemail/> Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> </VirtualHost>
15. Next, enable this virtual host and reload the apache for the changes.
$ sudo a2ensite roundcube.conf $ sudo systemctl reload apache2
16. You can now access the webmail by going to http://yourdomain.com/roundcubemail/installer/
.

16. Next, go to the Database settings and add the database details.

17. After making all the changes, create a config.inc.php
file.

18. After finishing the installation and the final tests please delete the installer
folder and make sure that enable_installer
option in config.inc.php
is disabled.
$ sudo rm /var/www/html/roundcubemail/installer/ -r
19. Now go to the login page and enter the user name and the password of the user.
http://yourdomain.com/roundcubemail/

Step 8: Creating Mail Users
20. In order to start using the Roundcube webmail, you’ll have to create a new user, to do so, run.
$ sudo useradd myusername
Replace “myusername” with the user name you want, create a password for the new user by running.
$ sudo passwd myusername
21. Now go back to the login page and enter the user name and the password of the newly created user.
Have you tried to create an email server before? How did it go? Have you used Roundcube or any other mail server before? What do you think about it?
And before running install-jsdeps.sh you need to make overwrite the content of file jsdeps.json with this:
https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/blob/master/jsdeps.json
UI does not work because of missing jquery.js files.
https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/issues/5592
we need to execute bin/install-jsdeps.sh script to get those JS files.
Just in case people come across problem-related to packages php not loading, I had to install
over php7.4 to make it working.
sample error logs:
PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class ‘PEAR’ not found in /var/www/html/roundcubemail/program/lib/Roundcube/bootstrap.php:103\nStack trace:\n#0 /var/www/html/roundcubemail/program/include/iniset.php(62): require_once()\n#1 /var/www/html/roundcubemail/installer/index.php(43): require(‘/var/www/html/r…’)\n#2 {main}\n thrown in /var/www/html/roundcubemail/program/lib/Roundcube/bootstrap.php on line 103
wow.. thanks. Now I can send and receive email from my own domain… thanks for this clear tutorial…
@Winar
Many thanks for the useful feedback.
Why I cannot telnet to SMTP Gmail with port 25?
@Fandi,
Check Port 25 is opened on your UFW firewall and also make sure that port 25 listening on the TCP socket using the netstat command.
Wow, this article just popped up in my RSS reader today.
IMHO:
Why on earth SquirrelMail? I have used it 14 yrs ago on my 50MB webspace, but it seems like since then it has not evolved – besides security fixes – at all.
It might still work just good enough for its purpose, but I think there are a couple of modern alternatives…
@Sebastian,
We didn’t know that SquirrelMail development stopped. We will replace it with Roundcube.
I don’t know for sure that development has “stopped”.
I thought it still is maintained for security patches.
But take a look at its homepage, it has barely seen updates in the last 5-6 yrs.
TIA for updating. I also use Roundcube, it’s a good alternative!
I have updated the article and included Roundcube webmail as suggested by you…
I have this problem:
ERROR: Config file ‘. ‘”config/config.php” not found. You need to ‘ . ‘configure SquirrelMail before you can use it.
‘; exit; } // If we are, go ahead to the login page. header(‘Location: src/login.php’); ?>
Run ./configure and can’t access rahimpenfriends.ddns.net/squirrelmail
Hey, great tutorial. I had some problems at the end though.
If anyone is having the same problem on an Apache2 server, of
www-data
not being able to write to /var/local/squirrelmail/data you have to create the directories, use chown to give it towww-data
and give it write permissions with chmod.I am getting this error on my apache2 php7.3:- Warning: session_set_cookie_params(): Cannot change session cookie parameters when session is active in /var/www/html/squirrelmail/functions/global.php on line 472.
Any solution??
I can’t access the domain.com, I have already made sure that everything was correct and as it is. Please help me and contact me on my email if you are willing to help. this is for my final project.