Re: [gentoo-user] cron and ssmtp

[Michael Higgins <linux@evolone.org>]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:37:32 +0100
Jan Seeger <jan.seeger@thenybble.de> wrote:

> > > > On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:36:46 -0800, Michael Higgins wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Is anyone using cron (vixie-cron) without a real MTA and
> > > > > getting emails? The test is simple, just "echo hello world".
> > > > > I expect this to come as an email to the address I put in
> > > > > MAILTO="". But it doesn't.
> <snip>
> 
> I am also getting mails from cron with ssmtp. However, I had to
> twiddle my mail server setup: Since ssmtp does not specify a complete
> From: (or envelope from) adress, the server refused the mail. I
> needed to allow messages without a from: adress to receive any mail
> from cron. Regards Jan

Well, to f/u with all of this.

I re-emerged vixie-cron and cronbase too...

 * Portage doesn't enforce proper permissions on already existing
 * directories (bug 141619). Appropriate permissions are now being set
 * on //etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly},
 * //var/spool/cron/ and //var/spool/cron/lastrun/
 * (see bug 182998)

IDK if that mattered. Again, I have no problem sending mail from a
shell. Looking at world, ssmtp isn't listed. I installed that too, for
kicks. But, I've been able to send and receive mail, so that shouldn't
matter...

In fact, I believe now what I do have is a problem getting cron to do
it's thing. At this point, I'm baffled. I started finding this in the
logs, however, so something changed:

Jan 22 16:04:01 devserv cron[22211]: Cannot make/remove an entry for the specified session
Jan 22 16:05:01 devserv cron[22215]: Cannot make/remove an entry for the specified session
Jan 22 16:06:01 devserv cron[22216]: Cannot make/remove an entry for the specified session
Jan 22 16:07:01 devserv cron[22217]: Cannot make/remove an entry for the specified session

Well, I guess now I know it's trying...

I'll remove 'pam' from my use flags for this? Re-emerge vixie-cron...

... oh, hello, now it's working??? WTF

Important: After upgrading PAM, from any version to any version, you
have to restart those services that are using it to avoid internal ABI
mismatches. This includes sshd, vixie-cron (and probably any other cron
service), mail servers, and in general almost every service that
accepts users.

Oh, REALLY? So there's a connection... hmm. I recall an upgrade howto
and check

 qfile -o /etc/pam.d/*
/etc/pam.d/cron

... but it seems fine... Referring to  a working config, I uncommented
the following line:

session optional        pam_limits.so

Re-emerged with pam useflag enabled again. Joy.

Thanks for all of your input, everyone... I'll be damned if I can
figure out what exactly fixed it, though.

Cheers,

-- 
 |\  /|        |   |          ~ ~  
 | \/ |        |---|          `|` ?
 |    |ichael  |   |iggins    \^ /
 michael.higgins[at]evolone[dot]org
-- 
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list