How to change default location of mailboxes in Plesk for Linux

Taras Ermoshin

Updated July 14, 2022 01:07

Plesk for Linux kb: how-to ABT: Group B

Applicable to:

Plesk for Linux

Question

By default, Plesk stores all mailboxes in the directory /var/qmail/mailnames/. How to change this location?

Answer

Warning: Changing the mailboxes location on Plesk servers with Plesk Premium Email installed is currently not supported. Such a possibility will be added in the future.

Find what SMTP and IMAP/POP3 servers are in use: Log in to Plesk and go to Tools & Settings > Mail Server Settings:
Connect to the server using SSH.
Stop the SMTP service:

# service postfix stop
Open the file/etc/psa/psa.conf in a text editor and change the value of the variable PLESK_MAILNAMES_D: specify a new location for mailbox directory:

# grep PLESK_MAILNAMES_D /etc/psa/psa.conf
PLESK_MAILNAMES_D /new_directory/mailnames

Note: Capital letters must not be used in the name of the directory that will be used as the new location for mailboxes.

Note: To avoid performance degradation, the new location for the mailboxes directory should be located in the local file system - it should not be mounted as a network share, such as NFS.
Copy the current mailboxes directory to the parent directory for the new mailboxes directory:

# cp -ap /var/qmail/mailnames /new_directory

For example, if the mailboxes directory is /mnt/mailnames, the command should look like this:

# cp -ap /var/qmail/mailnames /mnt

Warning: The directory /var/qmail/mailnames should not be removed. Only domains' directories can be removed or moved out from there if necessary.
Change the configuration of the IMAP/POP3 server:
- Dovecot:
  1. Create a new custom file to add variables in it:
    
    # touch /etc/dovecot/conf.d/99-custom_dir.conf
  2. Copy the actual location from the file /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf:
    
    # egrep -i mail_home\|mail_location /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
    mail_home = /var/qmail/mailnames/%Ld/%Ln
    mail_location = maildir:/var/qmail/mailnames/%Ld/%Ln/Maildir
  3. Add those 2 variables in the custom file: /etc/dovecot/conf.d/99-custom_dir.conf. Then change them to the custom location:
    
    # egrep -i mail_home\|mail_location /etc/dovecot/conf.d/99-custom_dir.conf
    mail_home = /new/mailnames/directory/%Ld/%Ln
    mail_location = maildir:/new/mailnames/directory/%Ld/%Ln/Maildir
  4. Restart Dovecot and pc-remote service:
    
    # service dovecot restart
    # service pc-remote restart
- Courier-IMAP:
  No need to change configuration, just restart all Courier services:
  
  # service courier-authdaemon restart
  # service courier-imapd restart
  # service courier-imaps restart
  # service courier-pop3d restart
  # service courier-pop3s restart
After all the steps are done, start SMTP service and reconfigure mail services:

# service postfix start
# plesk repair mail -y
Set the new home directory for the user popuser. In the file /etc/passwd, change /var/qmail/ to the new location:
- For CentOS/RHEL/CloudLinux/AlmaLinux:
  
  From:
  
  popuser:x:30:31:POP3 service user:/var/qmail/popuser:/sbin/nologin
  
  To:
  
  popuser:x:30:31:POP3 service user:/<new_mailnames_directory>/popuser:/sbin/nologin
- For Debian/Ubuntu:
  
  From:
  
  popuser:x:30:31:POP3 service user:/var/qmail/popuser:/bin/false
  
  To:
  
  popuser:x:30:31:POP3 service user:/<new_mailnames_directory>/popuser:/bin/false

Note: Before creating new mailboxes on new domains on CentOS/RHEL/AlmaLinux, it may be required to configure SELinux in the following way:

# chcon -R -t mail_spool_t <new_mailnames_directory>

Comments

36 comments

New Look Media November 27, 2019 19:02

Emilio Ortiz I have the exact same errors as you when performing a migration, and believe it is related to the capitalization of letters on my drive.

I also get the following error when trying to access any email accounts within plesk.

mailmng-mailname failed: Unable to open dir /mnt/mailstorage/qmail/mailnames/mydomain.com/jeff/@attachments: No such file or directory System error 2: No such file or directory

The path should be /mnt/MailStorage/ not /mnt/mailstorage/

I have also double-checked psa.conf and it looks like this:

PLESK_MAILNAMES_D /mnt/MailStorage/qmail/mailnames

Anyone have additional advice??

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Anton Maslov December 01, 2019 20:55

Hi New Look Media - our recommendation is to rename mount folder to lower case.

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Paolo Gabrielli September 14, 2020 10:13

Gentlemen,
I followed the guide, and everything worked without problems. But then I added a new account, and that account doesn't receive emails at all, while it can send.

Friday I got those two errors
Sep 11 17:30:25 server mailmng[21458]: Unable to get default delivery transport string from /var/qmail/mailnames/.default_delivery
Sep 11 17:30:25 server mailmng[21458]: Unable to add delivery string to '/mnt/mail/qmail/mailnames/example.com/surname.n/.qmail'

but today no errors at all. And trying a "plesk repair mail" (or a reboot) doesn't help.

Thanks.

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Ivan Postnikov September 16, 2020 14:39

Hello Paolo Gabrielli

Most probably required entries or the file /var/qmail/mailnames/.default_delivery is missing.

As I can see, the issue is currently investigated in the ticket.

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Dennis Rahmen November 08, 2020 00:59 (Edited November 08, 2020 01:28)

"To avoid performance degradation, the new location for the mailboxes directory should be located in the local file system - it should not be mounted as a network share, such as NFS"

Is this still the case? Also does it improve anything when I am using EXT4 on SSDs?

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Ivan Postnikov November 24, 2020 14:08

Hello Dennis Rahmen

I would say it depends on the quality (speed/bandwidth) of connections to the network share, first of all.

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