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Install iRedMail with a remote MySQL server

Summary

This article introduces how to install iRedMail-0.9.6 with an existing remote MySQL server.

We use below server IP addresses in our example:

• 192.168.1.100: Remote MySQL server.
• 192.168.1.200: iRedMail server. We're going to install the latest iRedMail on this server.

iRedMail won't install MySQL server (RPM/DEB package) on localhost with remote MySQL server, but MySQL client tools are still required for remote SQL connection.

Requirements

In our case, remote MySQL server runs on server 192.168.1.100. It must accept remote connection from iRedMail server BEFORE installing iRedMail, and we must create a new SQL user with password and proper privileges for remote login from iRedMail server (192.168.1.200 in our case).

• Make sure your remote MySQL server accepts remote connection from iRedMail server. For example, you can check it with command netstat:

# netstat -ntlp | grep 3306
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:3306            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      2479/mysqld

If MySQL server is listening on only 127.0.0.1, please update parameter bind-address in MySQL config file my.cnf to make sure it listens on all available IPv4 addresses like below, restarting MySQL service is required:

• On Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, openSUSE, OpenBSD, it's /etc/my.cnf.
• On Debian, Ubuntu, it's /etc/mysql/my.cnf.
• On FreeBSD, it's /var/db/mysql/my.cnf.

# If you comment out this parameter, it listens on all available IPv6 addresses
bind-address = 0.0.0.0

• Make sure remote MySQL request will not be blocked by network firewall like iptables (Linux), ipfw (FreeBSD) or PF (OpenBSD).

• Create a new SQL user (admin_iredmail) with new password (admin_password) and all privileges on remote MySQL server (of course you must choose another strong password):

  Warning

  This SQL user will be used for daily backup, please do not delete it after iRedMail installation.

-- Run on remote MySQL server as root user
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'admin_iredmail'@'192.168.1.200' IDENTIFIED BY 'admin_password' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
FLUSH HOSTS;

With above commands, MySQL user admin_iredmail is allowed to connect from IP address 192.168.1.200 with password admin_password.

Notes:

• WITH GRANT OPTION in above SQL command is required.
• Of course you can use root or other MySQL user as remote MySQL user name in above SQL command, but a custom user name should be better to help you understand what it's used for, and less confuse with default root user.
• You must replace 192.168.1.200 by the real IP address of your iRedMail server in above command.

If you tried to install iRedMail with this remote MySQL server before, please backup existing databases on remote MySQL server first, then drop them and delete related MySQL users, because they will be created by iRedMail automatically on remote MySQL server:

-- Run on remote MySQL server as root user
DROP DATABASE amavisd;
DROP DATABASE iredadmin;
DROP DATABASE iredapd;
DROP DATABASE roundcubemail;
DROP DATABASE sogo;
DROP DATABASE vmail;

DROP USER 'amavisd'@'192.168.1.200';
DROP USER 'iredadmin'@'192.168.1.200';
DROP USER 'iredapd'@'192.168.1.200';
DROP USER 'roundcube'@'192.168.1.200';
DROP USER 'sogo'@'192.168.1.200';
DROP USER 'vmail'@'192.168.1.200';
DROP USER 'vmailadmin'@'192.168.1.200';

Install iRedMail

Please follow iRedMail installation guide strictly, but start iRedMail installer with below command instead of the original one (bash iRedMail.sh):

USE_EXISTING_MYSQL='YES' \
    MYSQL_SERVER_ADDRESS='192.168.1.100' \
    MYSQL_SERVER_PORT='3306' \
    MYSQL_ROOT_USER='admin_iredmail' \
    MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWD='admin_password' \
    MYSQL_GRANT_HOST='192.168.1.200' \
    bash iRedMail.sh

It will launch iRedMail installation wizard as usual.

Parameters we used in above command line:

• USE_EXISTING_MYSQL: Remote MySQL server address.
• MYSQL_SERVER_ADDRESS: Remote MySQL server address.
• MYSQL_SERVER_PORT: Remote MySQL server port. Default is 3306.
• MYSQL_ROOT_USER: MySQL user name we created on remote MySQL server before installing iRedMail.
• MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWD: MySQL password that we created on remote MySQL server before installing iRedMail.
• MYSQL_GRANT_HOST: Hostname or IP address of iRedMail server.

iRedMail will create new SQL users for applications like Postfix, Amavisd, Roundcube webmail, etc, and grant proper privileges to them which will connect from iRedMail server.

One more optional parameter is INITIALIZE_SQL_DATA. If you don't want iRedMail installer to initialize any sql records, please set INITIALIZE_SQL_DATA=NO. This way iRedMail installer will just configure related config files to use remote MySQL server.