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Mail forwarding in Lion

In Workgroup Manager on Snow Leopard Server when you edited a users account settings, there was a "Mail" tab which you could enable/disable the mailbox, or, have the email forwarded to an external mail account.


So where is the equivalent option to do this in Lion Server? I can find the option to enable mail services for the user in the Server.app, and I can add mailbox aliases (using secondary shortnames) to Workgroup Manager, but I can't find anywhere to allow mail forwarding to an external address.


Any ideas anyone?

Posted on Jul 31, 2011 7:40 PM

Reply
13 replies

Jul 31, 2011 11:54 PM in response to Kane David

The only way I've found to effectively do the same thing is to create an account with a local mailbox, then log in to their WebMail service and set up a filter to redirect all emails to a specified address.


This works perfectly well but is a complete pain as it takes much longer to setup and I also need to know the users password.


A typical case of Apple trying to make something too simple for their own good - all they end up doing is making it simple for 1% of people, and far more challenging for 99% of the rest of us. Don't know what you guys think but Lion Server seems very half baked to me.

Sep 15, 2011 6:46 AM in response to Kane David

I've solved it this way:


I've created the following files in my homedirectory:


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root staff 61 Sep 15 14:59 edit_aliases.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 root staff 62 Sep 15 14:59 reload_aliases.sh


They contain the following:

edit_aliases.sh: #!/bin/bash vi /etc/aliases ./reload_aliases.sh reload_aliases.sh: #!/bin/bash postalias /etc/aliases newaliases postfix reload


In the aliases file I did this:

cat /etc/aliases # # Sample aliases file. Install in the location as specified by the # output from the command "postconf alias_maps". Typical path names # are /etc/aliases or /etc/mail/aliases. # # >>>>>>>>>> The program "newaliases" must be run after # >> NOTE >> this file is updated for any changes to # >>>>>>>>>> show through to Postfix. # # Person who should get root's mail. Don't receive mail as root! #root: you # Basic system aliases -- these MUST be present MAILER-DAEMON: postmaster postmaster: root # General redirections for pseudo accounts bin: root daemon: root named: root nobody: root uucp: root www: root ftp-bugs: root postfix: root # Put your local aliases here. # Well-known aliases manager: root dumper: root operator: root #Custom Aliassen info: localuser1, "partner@gmail.com" sales: localuser1, localuser2 ...


When a user sends an e-mail to info@mydomain.com it is forwarded to localuser1 and to partner@gmail.com. When a users sends an e-mail to sales@mydomain.com it is forwarded to localuser1 and localuser2.


I hope this helps a bit.


PLEASE NOTE: Run those .sh files AS ROOT (meaning, in the terminal do sudo -s or sudo ./edit_aliases.sh)

Nov 10, 2011 5:24 PM in response to Atrato

What a pain in the neck. Going back to the command line for what was easy to do in the previous GUI.


I agree with Kane David - that Apple play with these things and reduce the capability because someone at Apple doesn't understand or consult with the current users.


Apple - pleas put the capability back to administer mail services with Work Group Manager.

Nov 11, 2011 7:47 PM in response to Zach Mann

This problem was crippling a large client after migrating from Microsoft Online Services (now Office 365) to Lion Server.


Not having this feature is simply unacceptable.


However, I have finalized a way to get group emails working. It involves adding the LDAP 'mail' attribute to each group that you would like to have members 'subscribed' to for group email (simply by being in that group) by doing the instructions below.


Open Directory Utility on your Lion Server. Authenticate as the LDAP Admin account (usually diradmin) and edit 'groups' in LDAPv3/127.0.0.1. You can add an object type called EMailAddress for any group in LDAP. Add the accounts to the group that you would like to receive email.


I preferred creating my own file called /etc/postfix/ldap-groups.cf, but you can use the provided /etc/postfix/ldap-aliases.cf if desired.


In it, I put the following information to make postfix find the email address for the group, and then expand memberUid to uid, then formatting the results in an acceptable email format.


/etc/postfix/ldap-groups.cf


server_host = localhost

search_base = cn=groups,dc=domain,dc=tld

version = 3

query_filter = (mail=%s)

result_attribute = memberUid

result_format = %u@domain.tld


Once that is configured, you can test it by the Terminal:


$ postmap -q (EMailAddress)@domain.tld ldap:/etc/postfix/ldap-groups.cf


It should return users' email addresses.


After that, add the following information into main.cf


virtual_alias_maps = ldap:/etc/postfix/ldap-groups.cf


Restart postfix


# sudo postfix reload


Send yourself a test email and enjoy the functionality of what should have been included in Lion Server in the first place.


I am currently looking for a way to query OpenLDAP in a similar way, but instead be able to get the group email address to forward to users in it and to addresses outside of only LDAP users: e.g. forward to uid1, uid2, name(at)gmail.com.


Also, being able to have some kind of rules for who can email the group ... would be nice. However, it seems that Apple has run out of nice.

Nov 22, 2011 6:19 PM in response to Kane David

OK, so groups can recieve mail from a group address; can the group members then send mail under the guise of the group-assigned email alias?


For example

USERS 1,2,3, and 4 are in the "Sales" group with the group email of "sales@example.com". If a client sends a question to sales@example.com all users in the Sales group get the email. When they reply, will the email show up as being sent by "sales@example.com"?


sincerely,


OS X mail server noob

Nov 22, 2011 7:11 PM in response to Kane David

My goal is to have multiple groups and aliases for each user. I think editting the identity in webmail would allow for only one group email alias?


For example: I am a member of the Admin, Tech Support, and Janitor groups (not really), when I get emails from each group, I want the "from" address to be the respective address of the group email account. I would reply to emails to the janitor group with a from address of janitor@example.com and so on...


Does anyone have any tricks for this?

May 7, 2012 12:00 AM in response to Zach Mann

Thank you Zach Mann!


One word of caution though, I think if you have a group Wiki of the same name of the group you are creating email aliases for all your services will fail, at least mine did until I removed the EMailAddress object type - restarted and removed the Wiki. I then came back and added the object type and everything is fine.

Mail forwarding in Lion

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