THIS POST IS ALL ABOUT THE NEW VERSION OF UBUNTU THAT WILL BE OUT IN APRILL 2026.
THESE CHANGES DO NOT AFFECT THE CURRENT VERSION.
17/12/2025: A world first for EHCP force.
The upcoming version now offers the option to use Dovecot instead of courier (email), during the questions at the beginning of the installer.
This has been an absolute marathon, making it even harder for myself by making Dovecot optional.
A script runs toward the end of the install process (if the user answers yes to the Dovecot question), which completely rebuilds the EHCP force email system.
When I first started this, I found so many issues with the mail configuration, my script has to practically remove the entire email system, and start from scratch.
When the script has completed, it also replaces one of the installer files (file is called when the user clicks “Fix Mail Configuration”, from the EHCP force control panel).
The script adds two new cronjobs, one to update the Dovecot SSL certificate every six months, and the second to fix a permissions error in postfix which has probably existed for years (and gone un-noticed).
I have made this optional for the anybody who does not like change, although from the user’s standpoint, EHCP force all functions as it always did, but under the hood it’s had a massive change.
As before, all the changes are in the installer, the main application file for EHCP force remains unchanged.
I have also made a slight tweak to vim (file editor), as it would not copy and paste when using PuTTY.
12/12/2025: : Invalid HELO Name email bug fixed in the custom EHCP force version for Ubuntu 26.04.
09/11/2025: Changes to custom EHCP force version for Ubuntu 26.04.
It looks like we will be sticking with a custom version of the EHCP force installer for the upcoming version of Ubuntu Server (26.04), which should be released in Aprill 2026. In this version, there are no changes to the EHCP force main application file, it is just the installer that has been modified.
The post called: Essential command line configuration to be done next, will not be included in the Ubuntu 26.04 version of the site, here is why:
1. The installer will turn on MySQL logging automatically.
2. The installer will ask for the postmaster email address, and then add it to postfix automatically.
3. The MySQL root password will be automatically added to the system, for operating system access.
4. The MySQL admin user is created automatically by the installer.
5. The crontab file has been cleaned up, and also the installer now gives you the option to replace Ubuntu auto updates with an update script that runs each night (3:45 AM) with includes a system reboot.
6. For better security, passwords are auto generated as standard.
I have also removed some of the pointless questions in the initial part of the installer.
26/10/2025: New Build of the custom EHCP force, for Ubuntu 26.04.
I have created a build of EHCP force that works on Ubuntu 26.06.
There is no install for phpMyAdmin as yet, although there is a simple manual fix for this: -
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin
Wait for the installer to stall out with dbconfig-common: flushing administrative password
Hit CTRL+Z, then enter this command to force a reboot of the server.
sudo systemctl reboot -i
When the server had rebooted, enter this command.
sudo dpkg --configure -a
phpMyAdmin in now properly installed.
phpMyAdmin SHOULD be fixed in the release version of Ubuntu Server 26.04.
My test build of EHCP force has all the latest updates incorporated, and both SMTP and FTP Auth are working fine, courier is installed using the apt package manger (let’s hope it does not get pulled again).
Anyway I will keep you posted on progress.
26/10/2025: Installing legacycrypt breaks ftp-auth.
This is somewhat annoying but there is a solution.
After installing legacycrypt run this command.
pip3 install --upgrade passlib --force-reinstall --break-system-packages
Now they both work ok.
I may be necessary to lock legacycrypt in apt, to stop any future issues.
25/10/2025: SMTP Auth rears its ugly head again.
For once, it is not a problem with the saslauthd service, this runs fine using the 24.04 setup method.
EHCP force uses a custom Python script for SMTP auth (/etc/security/pam_dbauth_smtp.py).
The problem is that Ubuntu 26.04 uses Python 3.13, and crypt (encryption system) has been removed in this version.
Line 67 of the custom script says import crypt.
This is a simple thing to fix however, by replacing crypt with legacycrypt.
So, the fix is as follows from the command line.
sudo apt-get install python3-legacycrypt
Then, change line 67 of /etc/security/pam_dbauth_smtp.py to:-
import legacycrypt as crypt
Last, restart the saslautd service, and we are all fixed.
We don’t actually even need any of this of course in my version of EHCP force as Roundcube does not require SMTP auth, however I will include the fix in my modified version of EHCP force for Ubuntu Server 26.04. This means that SMTP auth will function as intended in my version, if you need to use it.
22/10/2025: Ubuntu Server 26.04, is looking quite good.
The courier MTA (email system) has returned in the developer (beta) version of 26.04, which is good, however we have been here before with 24.04, so I do not know if it will be included in the final release version.
At the moment, installing PhpMyAdmin using the apt package manager does not work, this is something that should be fixed later down the line (hopefully). There are other ways to install PhpMyAdmin, if it does not get fixed in time for the release in April 2026.
There is a slight problem with this line of code (on Ubuntu 26.04) in the EHCP force installer.
rPass=$(cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 32 | head -n 1 | head -c "$PLENGTH")
Basically, the above code is used to generate passwords at install time, however it causes a permanent loop and the installer can go no further. There is a very easy fix for this using a package called pwgen (password generator) though, so this is not really an issue.
At a test, I have managed to install and get working a pre Ubuntu 24.04 version of EHCP force (uses the original courier install method), be it without phpMyAdmin.
I will keep you posted on any developments.
GN Latest News