nginx: [emerg]: "mail" directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

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nginx: [emerg]: "mail" directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

Trying to get the basic email of mail reverse proxy working on nginx. I'm using the official nginx docker image and I have the following nginx config setup.

error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log info;

mail {
    server_name       mail.example.com;
    auth_http         localhost:9000/cgi-bin/nginxauth.cgi;

    imap_capabilities IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS IDLE LITERAL+ QUOTA;

    pop3_auth         plain apop cram-md5;
    pop3_capabilities LAST TOP USER PIPELINING UIDL;

    smtp_auth         login plain cram-md5;
    smtp_capabilities "SIZE 10485760" ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES 8BITMIME DSN;
    xclient           off;

    server {
        listen   25;
        protocol smtp;
    }
    server {
        listen   110;
        protocol pop3;
        proxy_pass_error_message on;
    }
    server {
        listen   143;
        protocol imap;
    }
    server {
        listen   587;
        protocol smtp;
    }
}

After staring nginx with the following command

nginx -g 'daemon off;'

I get this error:

2017/11/14 22:54:00 [emerg] 1#1: "mail" directive is not allowed here in /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:9

Any suggestion how to resolve this issue?

Comments:

2023-01-22 00:05:03

mail is a top-level block. Check your /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file, but I suspect that files in the conf.d directory are included into the http block.

2023-01-22 00:05:03

@RichardSmith Thanks for the reply. That is in fact the correct answer. I added the mail block to default nginx.conf and now I am not getting this error. Do you know what is the correct practice here? should I update the default conf?

Answers(1) :

Adding the below line to the first line of nginx conf helps me to get rid of this error

load_module /usr/ports/www/nginx-full/work/stage/usr/local/libexec/nginx/ngx_mail_module.so;

you may want to change the path to suit

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