Postfix unable to find /etc/postfix/virtual file

[Dotan Cohen]

On an Ubuntu Server 12.04 machine, I've set up an email forwarder for
a specific address in /etc/postfix/virtual: example at mydomain.com
postfix-test at dotancohen.com

The address postfix-test at dotancohen.com works and receives mail. When
I send mail to example at mydomain.com I get this in the logs:

warning: hash:/etc/postfix/virtual is unavailable. open database
/etc/postfix/virtual.db: No such file or directory
warning: hash:/etc/postfix/virtual lookup error for "example at mydomain.com"
warning: 705B58190E: virtual_alias_maps map lookup problem for
example at mydomain.com  -- deferring delivery

Why might postfix be unable to find the /etc/postfix/virtual file?

$ ls -la
total 96
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root  4096 Jul  4 08:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 102 root root  4096 Jun 24 06:23 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   274 Jun 24 06:23 dynamicmaps.cf
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1549 Jul  4 08:46 main.cf
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  5531 Jun 24 06:23 master.cf
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 19707 Feb 20 20:03 postfix-files
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root  8729 Feb 20 20:03 postfix-script
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root 26498 Feb 20 20:03 post-install
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Feb 20 20:03 sasl
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    43 Jul  4 08:27 virtual
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   130 Jul  4 08:26 vmailbox

$ cat virtual
example at mydomain.com post-test at dotancohen.com

$ cat main.cf | grep virtual
virtual_mailbox_domains = mydomain.com
virtual_mailbox_base = /var/mail/vhosts
virtual_mailbox_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/vmailbox
virtual_minimum_uid = 100
virtual_uid_maps = static:5000
virtual_gid_maps = static:5000
virtual_alias_domains = fastupfront.com
virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual
# virtual_alias_maps = /etc/postfix/virtual # I tried without the
'hash:' prefix as well.

Note that mydomain.com is anonymized. In fact, the domain name that is
used in the files is a real domain name that does have its A and MX
records pointed to the IP address of this server, and serving webpages
with Apache works. The DNS records were changed last week, so I know
that they have propagated.

--
Dotan Cohen

http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com