# Having trouble setting up mail **URL:** \ **Category:** Mail\ **Created:** [November 5, 2026, 11:00am UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427 "2026-11-05T11:00:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/krwl/32/10194_2.png) [@krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/krwl)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 11:00am UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/1 "2026-11-05T11:00:41Z")
I’m testing Hestia for the first time ever. Currently messing around on my test server. And seems like I made a bunch of mistakes which I don’t know how to fix 😂 Server is running on Debian 13. 1. I set up my main domain, added LE SSL successfully ( **new.domain.com** ) 2. Created mail domain and added DNS records for **mail.new.domain.com** (A) and **webmail.new.domain.com** (CNAME points to mail. ) 3. when I try to create SSL for mail domain it fails with error 4. I checked the forums for various fixes. Suspending/unsuspending the domain then retrying didn’t help. Trying to issue ssl via command line also didn’t help. Then I saw that Roundcube needs webmail.\* so I went to add that cname, and then realised that Roundcube isn’t installed.. v-add-sys-roundcube didn’t work because mysql isn’t installed D: 5. Then I realised my mistake - I did not check any DBs during install 😂 (I used command builder at [Install | Hestia Control Panel](https://hestiacp.com/install.html) ) So now I’m scratching my head. I’m not entirely sure if Roundcube is needed at all in the process of issuing that SSL, but I think I’d like to have it after all (my mistake not figuring out that it would need some DB). But also if I go to the failed acme challenge link it does give me 404, so it might be an entirely separate problem? I’d appreciate some directions. ---
**Author:** ![sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/sahsanu/32/9318_2.png) [@sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/sahsanu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 11:18am UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/2 "2026-11-05T11:18:50Z")
Show the output of these commands (replace `YourUser` and `YourDomain` with the actual user and domain): ```t cat /home/YourUser/conf/mail/YourDomain/nginx.conf cat /home/YourUser/conf/mail/YourDomain/nginx.conf_letsencrypt ``` To be able to debug it, it’s important to know the actual domain. ---
**Author:** ![krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/krwl/32/10194_2.png) [@krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/krwl)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 11:27am UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/3 "2026-11-05T11:27:56Z")
alright, it’s a temporary one anyway: [new.dreamdb.com](http://new.dreamdb.com) so, nginx.conf **doesn’t exist** under the mail folder (there is one in the web folder), and nginx.conf\_letsencrypt looks like this: ```auto location ~ "^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/(.*)$" { default_type text/plain; return 200 "$1.8BfNKg5NNTiEMSB0sCl0ULiqiObNVBX621tbWL3pIzw"; } ``` ---
**Author:** ![sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/sahsanu/32/9318_2.png) [@sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/sahsanu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 11:37am UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/4 "2026-11-05T11:37:49Z")
Your mail domain is not serving the acme challenge. > [@krwl](#): > > **doesn’t exist** under the mail folder Mmmmm, show the output of this command: For the below commands, replace YourUser with the actual user. ```auto ls -la /home/YourUser/conf/mail/new.dreamdb.com/ ``` Also, these ones: ```auto v-list-mail-domains YourUser json v-list-sys-config json | jq -r '.[].WEBMAIL_SYSTEM' ``` ---
**Author:** ![krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/krwl/32/10194_2.png) [@krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/krwl)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 11:47am UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/5 "2026-11-05T11:47:30Z")
dir: ```auto drwxrwx--x 2 Debian-exim mail 4096 Nov 5 15:00 . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov 5 13:56 .. -rw-rw---- 1 Debian-exim mail 0 Nov 5 15:00 accounts -rw-rw---- 1 Debian-exim mail 0 Nov 5 15:00 aliases -rw-rw---- 1 Debian-exim mail 1704 Nov 5 15:00 dkim.pem -rw-rw---- 1 Debian-exim mail 0 Nov 5 15:00 fwd_only -rw-rw---- 1 Debian-exim mail 13 Nov 5 15:00 ip -rw-rw---- 1 Debian-exim mail 0 Nov 5 15:00 limits -rw-rw---- 1 Debian-exim mail 147 Nov 5 16:22 nginx.conf_letsencrypt lrwxrwxrwx 1 Debian-exim mail 60 Nov 5 13:59 nginx.ssl.conf_letsencrypt -> /home/USER/conf/mail/new.dreamdb.com/nginx.conf_letsencrypt -rw-rw---- 1 dovecot mail 0 Nov 5 15:00 passwd ``` v-list-mail-domains User json: ```auto { "new.dreamdb.com": { "ANTIVIRUS": "no", "ANTISPAM": "no", "REJECT": "no", "RATE_LIMIT": "200", "DKIM": "yes", "CATCHALL": "", "ACCOUNTS": "1", "U_DISK": "0", "SSL": "no", "SUSPENDED": "no", "TIME": "13:56:11", "DATE": "2026-11-05", "WEBMAIL_ALIAS": "", "WEBMAIL": "" } } ``` `v-list-sys-config json | jq -r '.\[\].WEBMAIL_SYSTEM'` returns an empty line. ---
**Author:** ![sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/sahsanu/32/9318_2.png) [@sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/sahsanu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 12:27pm UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/6 "2026-11-05T12:27:53Z")
```t v.rebuild-mail-domain YourUser new.dreamdb.com yes ls -la /home/YourUser/conf/mail/new.dreamdb.com/ ``` If the rebuild doesn’t work, maybe you should install mysql and roundcube but using the Hestia way. ---
**Author:** ![krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/krwl/32/10194_2.png) [@krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/krwl)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 12:36pm UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/7 "2026-11-05T12:36:02Z")
Right, I already tried the rebuild once, and that’s how I found out that I needed Roundcube. Just tried it again, it fails with: `Error: roundcube type is invalid` How do I install it + mysql using the Hestia way? I saw a similar much older thread on here but the link for the install script was dead, so I couldn’t try it. ---
**Author:** ![sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/sahsanu/32/9318_2.png) [@sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/sahsanu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 12:57pm UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/8 "2026-11-05T12:57:20Z")
> [@krwl](#): > > How do I install it + mysql using the Hestia way? Execute this script to install MariaDB: **EDIT** ~~the script is not ready yet, I need to fix it.~~ I’ve fixed the script and can be used now. ```t curl -fsSLm30 https://7j.gg/instmdb | sudo bash -s -- ``` If you get no errors: ```t v-add-sys-roundcube ``` ---
**Author:** ![sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/sahsanu/32/9318_2.png) [@sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/sahsanu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 2:05pm UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/9 "2026-11-05T14:05:44Z")
I forgot that you are using Debian 13, if you get an error like `ERROR: installto.sh failed` is because Debian 13 updated recently `rsync` to be strict with the use of symlinks and the Roundcube’s script `installto.sh` uses it. Hestia 1.10.6 will fix it but meanwhile. ```t cd /usr/local/hestia/bin mv v-add-sys-roundcube v-add-sys-roundcube.bak curl -fsSLm30 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hestiacp/hestiacp/refs/heads/main/bin/v-add-sys-roundcube -o v-add-sys-roundcube chmod +x v-add-sys-roundcube sed -i 's/1\.7\.4/1.7.3/' /var/lib/roundcube/program/include/iniset.php v-add-sys-roundcube ``` ---
**Author:** ![krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/krwl/32/10194_2.png) [@krwl](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/krwl)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:10pm UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/10 "2026-11-05T16:10:03Z")
Thank you so much for the help! I think everything went well without the additional edits: 1. the script has installed MariaDB successfully. 2. I added Roundcube with the normal v-add-sys-roundcube. 3. Tried to rebuild the mail domain again. I saw that nginx and apache configs were added to the folder. 4. Went to poke the panel and successfully added SSL! 5. There was another issue after that: Roundcube opened but threw an “Oops something went wrong”, so I snooped around the logs and saw that it was missing Pdo\Mysql, so I installed specifically php8.5-mysql. After that the login page finally showed, yippee. I tried sending an email to gmail, and of course it bounced back, because I didn’t add any extra DNS records, so I’m going to wrestle with that for now, we’ll see if something new comes up. ---
**Author:** ![sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/user_avatar/forum.hestiacp.com/sahsanu/32/9318_2.png) [@sahsanu](https://forum.hestiacp.com/u/sahsanu)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:28pm UTC](https://forum.hestiacp.com/t/having-trouble-setting-up-mail/22427/11 "2026-11-05T16:28:12Z")
> [@krwl](#): > > saw that it was missing Pdo\Mysql, so I installed specifically php8.5-mysql Sorry, I forgot to add it to the script, I’ll add it. Glad you get it working now.