Mail sent to Postfix default accounts is routed to Plesk Administrator’s email

Symptoms

• When the mail service is enabled for a domain (i.e. example.com), the following email accounts are set up in Postfix by default:

  postmap -s /var/spool/postfix/plesk/virtual | grep @example1.com
  anonymous@example.com anonymous@localhost.localdomain
  drweb@example.com drweb@localhost.localdomain
  kluser@example.com kluser@localhost.localdomain
  postmaster@example.com postmaster@localhost.localdomain
  root@example.com root@localhost.localdomain
  mailer-daemon@example.com mailer-daemon@localhost.localdomain

• If an email message is sent to one of those email accounts (e.g. root@example.com), it gets forwarded to the email address that is set under the Plesk Administrator's Profile.

Cause

This behavior is by design: In the following output, it can be seen that all emails sent to the accounts mentioned (for example root@localhost.localdomain) are forwarded to Plesk Administrator email address (for example pleskadmin@example.com):

postmap -s /var/spool/postfix/plesk/aliases
drweb pleskadmin@example.com
kluser pleskadmin@example.com
postmaster pleskadmin@example.com
root pleskadmin@example.com
anonymous pleskadmin@example.com
drweb-daemon pleskadmin@example.com
ailer-daemon pleskadmin@example.com
mailman pleskadmin@example.com

Resolution

To change this behavior:

1. Connect to the server via SSH;

2. Modify /etc/aliases file to forward all messages from desired accounts to another mailbox (for example john.doe@example.com).

   For instance, for the account root@localhost.localdomain, add the following line into the /etc/aliases file:

   root: john.doe@example.com

3. Run the following command:

   # postalias /etc/aliases

4. Verify that the setting applied:

   # postmap -s /etc/aliases | grep root

Note: This will not affect accounts created in Plesk with the name root@domainname.com, but if the mailbox does not exist then the message will be forwarded to john.doe@example.com instead of the Plesk Administrator email address.