webadmin-list

[webmin-l] Virtualmin-user in MySQL database store

[Danny L. <li...@da...>]

Hi,
I have 2 questions:
1.)
I send an email to a mailbox that by this mail the mail-quota limit 
would exceed.
Then I get sent back an email with the message:

Diagnostic-Code: x-unix; can't create user output file

Is this normal and if not what's going wrong?

2.)
It is planned that I can, some time in the future, the users of 
Virtualmin in a MySQL database save instead of files?
I know there is also LDAP, but that is not an option for me.

Re: [webmin-l] Virtualmin-user in MySQL database store

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

On 27/Oct/2011 02:05 Danny Löser <li...@da...> wrote ..
> Hi,
> I have 2 questions:
> 1.)
> I send an email to a mailbox that by this mail the mail-quota limit 
> would exceed.
> Then I get sent back an email with the message:
> 
> Diagnostic-Code: x-unix; can't create user output file
> 
> Is this normal and if not what's going wrong?

That doesn't look like the normal error message. I'd be interested to
know what gets logged to /var/log/procmail.log and /var/log/mail*log when
you send email to a mailbox like this..

> 2.)
> It is planned that I can, some time in the future, the users of 
> Virtualmin in a MySQL database save instead of files?
> I know there is also LDAP, but that is not an option for me.

MySQL support isn't planned currently - the main issue is that Virtualmin
uses have to be Unix users, and there is no nss_mysql module that 
can make this possible yet (unlike nss_ldap).

 - Jamie

Re: [webmin-l] Virtualmin-user in MySQL database store

[Kris D. <kd...@vi...>]

Jamie Cameron wrote:
> MySQL support isn't planned currently - the main issue is that Virtualmin
> uses have to be Unix users,

Is there any underlying reason for this requirement?  A great many other 
full hosting platforms and homegrown solutions seem to work just fine 
with their users defined in other ways.

-kgd

Re: [webmin-l] Virtualmin-user in MySQL database store

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

On 27/Oct/2011 08:47 Kris Deugau <kd...@vi...> wrote ..
> Jamie Cameron wrote:
> > MySQL support isn't planned currently - the main issue is that Virtualmin
> > uses have to be Unix users,
> 
> Is there any underlying reason for this requirement?  A great many other 
> full hosting platforms and homegrown solutions seem to work just fine 
> with their users defined in other ways.

The reason is that mailboxes which are not Unix users cannot make use of Unix
quotas, login via FTP, use procmail, Usermin and any other service that requires
running commands or owning files as a regular user.

My counter-question is : what is the advantage of storing mailboxes in MySQL?
If the scalability of /etc/passwd is an issue, LDAP seems like a good solution..

 - Jamie

Re: [webmin-l] Virtualmin-user in MySQL database store

[Kris D. <kd...@vi...>]

(FWIW:  Given another few years as sysadmin at a small ISP I might well 
have tried out Virtualmin for webhosting;  I had written some tools to 
create sites and manage email users, but many other pieces of the puzzle 
were missing and I never did get quite a few things working for 
webhosting customers as well as for the main ISP customers.  However, 
that small ISP got bought out by a much larger one...  whose systems 
were already split into "webhosting", "legacy email", "main ISP email", 
etc.)

Jamie Cameron wrote:
> On 27/Oct/2011 08:47 Kris Deugau<kd...@vi...>  wrote ..
>> Jamie Cameron wrote:
>>> MySQL support isn't planned currently - the main issue is that Virtualmin
>>> uses have to be Unix users,
>>
>> Is there any underlying reason for this requirement?  A great many other
>> full hosting platforms and homegrown solutions seem to work just fine
>> with their users defined in other ways.
>
> The reason is that mailboxes which are not Unix users cannot make use of Unix
> quotas, login via FTP, use procmail, Usermin and any other service that requires
> running commands or owning files as a regular user.

I can say for sure that quotas and FTP work fine with virtual users that 
have real UIDs but no entry in /etc/passwd (depending on the FTP 
software, anyway).  I'd be surprised if procmail can't be configured to 
cope too.

We actually still use flatfiles to store the user data for our email and 
web services;  they're just separate from /etc/passwd and use UIDs/GIDs 
in the extended 32-bit range (starting at 100000, IIRC).

For mail service, they're also created for specific Postfix data 
sources, and use the hashed cdb database format for the actual live 
files.  At 50K accounts, this *does* show a minor performance benefit 
over potentially scanning a straight flatfile or /etc/passwd, IIRC.

Moving to a full DBMS-backed user table has been on the to-do list for a 
while though;  it would mean changes from our billing/customer database 
backend would show up in near-realtime on the mail system.

> My counter-question is : what is the advantage of storing mailboxes in MySQL?
> If the scalability of /etc/passwd is an issue, LDAP seems like a good solution..

I can't say much about LDAP other than the little I've seen makes it 
look like a minor nightmare to configure and maintain without a 
fullblown GUI tool of some kind.  SQL seems to be simpler, too.

The advantage to not using flatfiles or hash tables is that updates show 
up "right now" (within a few seconds, at least) without having to signal 
the MTA or FTP server.

-kgd

Re: [webmin-l] Virtualmin-user in MySQL database store

[Jamie C. <jca...@we...>]

On 31/Oct/2011 08:08 Kris Deugau <kd...@vi...> wrote ..
> (FWIW:  Given another few years as sysadmin at a small ISP I might well 
> have tried out Virtualmin for webhosting;  I had written some tools to 
> create sites and manage email users, but many other pieces of the puzzle 
> were missing and I never did get quite a few things working for 
> webhosting customers as well as for the main ISP customers.  However, 
> that small ISP got bought out by a much larger one...  whose systems 
> were already split into "webhosting", "legacy email", "main ISP email", 
> etc.)
> 
> Jamie Cameron wrote:
> > On 27/Oct/2011 08:47 Kris Deugau<kd...@vi...>  wrote ..
> >> Jamie Cameron wrote:
> >>> MySQL support isn't planned currently - the main issue is that Virtualmin
> >>> uses have to be Unix users,
> >>
> >> Is there any underlying reason for this requirement?  A great many other
> >> full hosting platforms and homegrown solutions seem to work just fine
> >> with their users defined in other ways.
> >
> > The reason is that mailboxes which are not Unix users cannot make use of Unix
> > quotas, login via FTP, use procmail, Usermin and any other service that requires
> > running commands or owning files as a regular user.
> 
> I can say for sure that quotas and FTP work fine with virtual users that 
> have real UIDs but no entry in /etc/passwd (depending on the FTP 
> software, anyway).  I'd be surprised if procmail can't be configured to 
> cope too.
> 
> We actually still use flatfiles to store the user data for our email and 
> web services;  they're just separate from /etc/passwd and use UIDs/GIDs 
> in the extended 32-bit range (starting at 100000, IIRC).
> 
> For mail service, they're also created for specific Postfix data 
> sources, and use the hashed cdb database format for the actual live 
> files.  At 50K accounts, this *does* show a minor performance benefit 
> over potentially scanning a straight flatfile or /etc/passwd, IIRC.
> 
> Moving to a full DBMS-backed user table has been on the to-do list for a 
> while though;  it would mean changes from our billing/customer database 
> backend would show up in near-realtime on the mail system.
> 
> > My counter-question is : what is the advantage of storing mailboxes in MySQL?
> > If the scalability of /etc/passwd is an issue, LDAP seems like a good solution..
> 
> I can't say much about LDAP other than the little I've seen makes it 
> look like a minor nightmare to configure and maintain without a 
> fullblown GUI tool of some kind.  SQL seems to be simpler, too.
> 
> The advantage to not using flatfiles or hash tables is that updates show 
> up "right now" (within a few seconds, at least) without having to signal 
> the MTA or FTP server.

An MTA or FTP server reload shouldn't be needed to pick up a new user added
to /etc/passwd though - if this is the case on your system, make sure you aren't
running "nscd", which is a caching daemon that stores /etc/passwd in memory for
fast access, but at the expense of making changes slower to become visible..

 - Jamie

Re: [webmin-l] Virtualmin-user in MySQL database store

[Danny L. <li...@da...>]

Am 27.10.2011 17:28, schrieb Jamie Cameron:
> On 27/Oct/2011 02:05 Danny Löser<li...@da...>  wrote ..
>> Hi,
>> I have 2 questions:
>> 1.)
>> I send an email to a mailbox that by this mail the mail-quota limit
>> would exceed.
>> Then I get sent back an email with the message:
>>
>> Diagnostic-Code: x-unix; can't create user output file
>>
>> Is this normal and if not what's going wrong?
> That doesn't look like the normal error message. I'd be interested to
> know what gets logged to /var/log/procmail.log and /var/log/mail*log when
> you send email to a mailbox like this..
>
>> 2.)
>> It is planned that I can, some time in the future, the users of
>> Virtualmin in a MySQL database save instead of files?
>> I know there is also LDAP, but that is not an option for me.
> MySQL support isn't planned currently - the main issue is that Virtualmin
> uses have to be Unix users, and there is no nss_mysql module that
> can make this possible yet (unlike nss_ldap).
>
>   - Jamie
>
>
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OK, in the mail.log is:
Oct 27 17:54:31 dcp postfix/smtpd[6568]: connect from 
ipcop2.localdomain[192.168.2.1]
Oct 27 17:54:31 dcp postfix/smtpd[6568]: 8757515360C1: 
client=ipcop2.localdomain[192.168.2.1]
Oct 27 17:54:31 dcp postfix/cleanup[6571]: 8757515360C1: 
message-id=<4EA...@da...>
Oct 27 17:54:31 dcp dkim-filter[2459]: 8757515360C1 DKIM verification 
successful
Oct 27 17:54:31 dcp postfix/qmgr[2454]: 8757515360C1: 
from=<in...@da...>, size=2616130, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Oct 27 17:54:31 dcp postfix/smtpd[6568]: disconnect from 
ipcop2.localdomain[192.168.2.1]
Oct 27 17:54:32 dcp postfix/local[6572]: 8757515360C1: 
to=<tes...@dc...>, orig_to=<te...@do...>, 
relay=local, delay=0.55, delays=0.39/0/0/0.16, dsn=5.2.0, status=bounced 
(can't create user output file)
Oct 27 17:54:32 dcp postfix/cleanup[6571]: 191C915360E5: 
message-id=<201...@dc...>
Oct 27 17:54:32 dcp postfix/bounce[6580]: 8757515360C1: sender 
non-delivery notification: 191C915360E5
Oct 27 17:54:32 dcp postfix/qmgr[2454]: 191C915360E5: from=<>, 
size=4515, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Oct 27 17:54:32 dcp postfix/bounce[6580]: 8757515360C1: postmaster 
non-delivery notification: 1986C15360E6
Oct 27 17:54:32 dcp postfix/qmgr[2454]: 8757515360C1: removed
Oct 27 17:54:32 dcp postfix/smtp[6581]: 191C915360E5: 
to=<in...@da...>, relay=mail.dannypsilon.de[217.7.101.72]:25, 
delay=0.04, delays=0/0/0.02/0.01, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok: 
queued as 79681416001)
Oct 27 17:54:32 dcp postfix/qmgr[2454]: 191C915360E5: removed

and in the procmail.log is:
Disk quota for test.domain2.de has been reached.
procmail: Program failure (73) of 
"/etc/webmin/virtual-server/lookup-domain.pl"
 From in...@da...  Thu Oct 27 17:54:31 2011
  Subject: Fwd: Fwd: test
   Folder: /dev/null                            2581019
Time:1319730872 From:in...@da... To:te...@do... 
User:test.domain2.de Size:2581020 Dest:/dev/null Mode:None

To the second question again:
OK, but it would be for some time in the future still desirable.