Setting up Email on Hestia
This tutorial will help you set up SMTP email service using the Hestia Control Panel installed on your HelioHost VPS.
Getting Started
You will need:
Hestia Control Panel installed on your VPS
Your VPS will come with Hestia preinstalled if you requested this during signup
Alternatively, you can install Hestia yourself. There is a helpful tutorial here.
A domain you want to use for email
Log In to Hestia
In your web browser, navigate to vps##.heliohost.us
and log in to your Hestia Control Panel.
Check Firewall Rules
First, we will make sure the necessary ports are open:
Click on the Settings gear wheel icon at the top right
Click on the
Firewall
button
Confirm Open Ports
Doublecheck that the following ports are set to Accept
connections from IP Address 0.0.0.0/0
(which means it allows all IPs):
Hestia: 8083
SMTP: 25, 465, 587
Web: 80, 443
If you already have a domain set up inside Hestia that you want to add mail service to, you can skip right to the Add Mail Domain section.
Create a Standard User Account
The system administrator account we used to log in to Hestia has increased privileges. To prevent potential security risks, we will create an account with fewer permissions that will still enable us to set mail service up.
Click on the
User
tabClick on the
Add User
buttonFill in the form fields
Set the
Role
field toUser
Set the
Package
toDefault
Click on the
Save
button at the top right side of the pageYou should see a message that says: "User
username
has been created successfully. / Log in asusername
"Click on the link that says: "Log in as
username
"
Add Web Domain
Click on the
Web
tabClick on the
Add Web Domain
buttonEnter your domain or subdomain
Select the
Mail Support
option to enable email for this domainClick on the
Save
button at the top right side of the pageYou should see a message that says: "Domain
domain.com
has been created successfully."
Add Mail Domain
Click on the Mail
tab
If your domain is not listed:
Click on the
Add Mail Domain
buttonSet the
Domain
field todomain.com
Select
DKIM Support
Click on the
Save
button at the top right side of the pageYou should see a message that says "Mail domain
domain.com
has been created successfully."Click on the
Mail
tab againClick on the small
DNS Records
button next to your domain
If your domain is listed:
Click on the small
DNS Records
button next to your domain
View DNS Records
Hestia Control Panel automatically creates the necessary mail records for our SMTP server. To view your mail DNS records, select the Mail
tab and click on the small DNS Records
button next to your domain.
You will need to login to your domain registrar account and add all the records shown to the DNS management section.
Enable SSL
We recommend that you enable SSL for your mail domain. Inside Hestia:
Click on the
Web
tabClick on the small
Edit Domain
button next to your domain
Select your preferred SSL settings, and click on the
Save
button at the top right side of the pageYou should see a message that says
Changes have been saved.
Update Domain Registrar
Before proceeding, make sure you have logged in to your domain registrar account and added the values shown in Hestia to the DNS management section.
Namecheap
If you use Namecheap as your domain registrar, the below guidance should help you add the necessary details to their DNS management section.
Login to your Namecheap account, find your domain in the list and click on the Manage
button:
Click on the Advanced DNS
tab
Enter the DNS record values provided in Hestia into your Namecheap dashboard for the two A
records, four TXT
records, and the one mx
record:
Add Mail User Accounts
After adding all the DNS records to your domain registrar site, return to Hestia. Make sure you are logged in as the user who set up the mail domain.
Click on the
Mail
tabClick on the small
Add Mail Account
button next to your domain
Add Email Account
Enter the
Account
name andPassword
for the email accountThe value you enter for
Account
will be the first part (before the@domain.com
) of the email address
Click on the
Save
buttonYou should see a message that says: "Mail account
name@domain.com
has been created successfully."
Check Webmail
You can access your webmail at webmail.domain.com
Troubleshooting
When trying to access your webmail link, if you receive an error message that says: Oops... something went wrong! An internal error has occurred. Your request cannot be processed at this time. For administrators: Please check the application and/or server error logs for more information.
, follow the steps below.
Check Ownership and Permissions
To check the owner and permissions on the files in the roundcube
folder, open a new terminal window and login to your VPS.
Navigate to /etc/roundcube/
and list the contents of the folder:
You should see:
Update Ownership and Permissions
If your files have a different owner or different permissions, we can follow the suggestion in this this Hestia support post.
Change file ownership:
Change file permissions:
Check Webmail Again
You should now be able to open webmail.domain.com
and login with name@domain.com
and the password you set up.
Check Email Trust Score
You can test the likelihood of your emails being received by using GMass's free SMTP Test Tool and a free test email address from mail-tester.
In a new browser tab, visit mail-tester.com and make a note of the @mail-tester.com
email address.
In a second new browser tab, visit gmass.co/smtp-test. In the To email address
field, use the email address from mail-tester. Fill in the rest of your credentials, and click the Test it
button.
Once the test email has been sent, return to the mail-tester tab and click on the Then check your score
button. You will then get an analysis of your email settings, and suggestions on what to fix if any misconfigurations are detected.
Further Support
If after following the above steps, you are unable to view your webmail, aren't sure how to fix a mail-tester score of less than 10/10 or have any other issues, please post a topic in the Customer Support forum. Please make sure you provide your VPS number and details about the problem, such as the mail-tester report, or any error message(s) received.
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