[gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Kevin O'Gorman]

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Some time ago, it appears, postfix stopped working for me.  I am no longer
able
to use it to send mail (usually to my ISP, where it gets routed).

It used to work fine, and if there was an elog that I needed to follow, I
missed it.

I don't even know where to start on this.  Can anyone give me a shove in the
right direction.  I'm pretty good at this, but I only configured Postfix
once and it
was a long time ago.

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD

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Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 21:57:42 -0800, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:

> I don't even know where to start on this.

I'd start by looking at the logs, I think Postfix logs to syslog by
default. The first question is is it even starting?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

...and that is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Mick]

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On Sunday 14 November 2010 05:57:42 Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> Some time ago, it appears, postfix stopped working for me.  I am no longer
> able
> to use it to send mail (usually to my ISP, where it gets routed).
> 
> It used to work fine, and if there was an elog that I needed to follow, I
> missed it.
> 
> I don't even know where to start on this.  Can anyone give me a shove in
> the right direction.  I'm pretty good at this, but I only configured
> Postfix once and it
> was a long time ago.

You're one step ahead of me in that I haven't even configured postfix once, 
but any MTAs that I have configured would generate copious logs with errors 
when things borked.  If you don't want to share these and the error is not 
obvious, then try replicating the postfix steps using telnet, or nc, or 
openssl s_client to see what the ISP's server returns.  Some ISPs change ports 
(e.g. disable port 25) to minimised spam sent by botnets, so that's the first 
thing I would check.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Stroller]

On 14/11/2010, at 5:57am, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:

> Some time ago, it appears, postfix stopped working for me.  I am no longer able
> to use it to send mail (usually to my ISP, where it gets routed).
> ...
> I don't even know where to start on this.  Can anyone give me a shove in the
> right direction.  I'm pretty good at this, but I only configured Postfix once and it
> was a long time ago.

Start configuring Postfix again from scratch, following the guide (E.G. <http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Postfix>). For a basic install of Postfix - i.e. outgoing proxy, on your LAN, behind a router - then there's very little you need to configure. About 3 or 4 lines in main.cf.

You should be doing stuff like telnetting to port 25 <http://www.yuki-onna.co.uk/email/smtp.html> and `sendmail kevin < file.txt` (assuming kevin is a valid local user and you know how to read the mailbox). If there's no reply on port 25 then you know postfix isn't starting.

Seriously, the first place to look is ALWAYS the logs.

Once you've got mail working, consider something like:
$ grep ELOG /etc/make.conf
PORTAGE_ELOG_CLASSES="warn error log"
PORTAGE_ELOG_SYSTEM="save mail"
PORTAGE_ELOG_MAILURI="root"
PORTAGE_ELOG_MAILFROM="portage@yourhostname"
$ 

Note that postmaster & root should be configured in /etc/mail/aliases - typically postmaster -> root, root -> you. About the hardest part of setting up a Postfix install is running the newaliases command.

Stroller.

Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Willie Wong]

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 09:57:42PM -0800, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> Some time ago, it appears, postfix stopped working for me.  I am no longer
> able
> to use it to send mail (usually to my ISP, where it gets routed).
> 

Do you actually need a full blown mail server? If you just relay your
mail to your ISP, then you may be able to simplify your life using
something like nbsmtp. 

W
-- 
Willie W. Wong                                     wwong@math.princeton.edu
Data aequatione quotcunque fluentes quantitae involvente fluxiones invenire 
         et vice versa   ~~~  I. Newton

Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Allan Gottlieb]

Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> writes:

> On 14/11/2010, at 5:57am, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>
>> Some time ago, it appears, postfix stopped working for me.  I am no longer able
>> to use it to send mail (usually to my ISP, where it gets routed).
>> ...
>> I don't even know where to start on this.  Can anyone give me a shove in the
>> right direction.  I'm pretty good at this, but I only configured Postfix once and it
>> was a long time ago.
>
> Start configuring Postfix again from scratch, following the guide (E.G. <http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Postfix>). For a basic install of Postfix - i.e. outgoing proxy, on your LAN, behind a router - then there's very little you need to configure. About 3 or 4 lines in main.cf.
>
> You should be doing stuff like telnetting to port 25 <http://www.yuki-onna.co.uk/email/smtp.html> and `sendmail kevin < file.txt` (assuming kevin is a valid local user and you know how to read the mailbox). If there's no reply on port 25 then you know postfix isn't starting.
>
> Seriously, the first place to look is ALWAYS the logs.
>
> Once you've got mail working, consider something like:
> $ grep ELOG /etc/make.conf
> PORTAGE_ELOG_CLASSES="warn error log"
> PORTAGE_ELOG_SYSTEM="save mail"
> PORTAGE_ELOG_MAILURI="root"
> PORTAGE_ELOG_MAILFROM="portage@yourhostname"
> $ 
>
> Note that postmaster & root should be configured in /etc/mail/aliases
> - typically postmaster -> root, root -> you. About the hardest part of
> setting up a Postfix install is running the newaliases command.

The only "hard" part for me was that I needed to set up sasl since the
site I relay through (smtp.cs.nyu.edu) requires authentication.
If you don't need this authentication with password, then there is
really nothing hard.

A few revisions ago postfix changed this but supplied a legacy version
that I use.  Lately, the updates have been painless (although stressful,
due to the importance of mail).

As mentioned the logs are helpful and the verbosity can be configured.
From my current main.cf

    # DEBUGGING CONTROL
    #
    # The debug_peer_level parameter specifies the increment in verbose
    # logging level when an SMTP client or server host name or address
    # matches a pattern in the debug_peer_list parameter.
    #
    debug_peer_level = 2

    # The debug_peer_list parameter specifies an optional list of domain
    # or network patterns, /file/name patterns or type:name tables. When
    # an SMTP client or server host name or address matches a pattern,
    # increase the verbose logging level by the amount specified in the
    # debug_peer_level parameter.
    #
    #debug_peer_list = 127.0.0.1
    #debug_peer_list = some.domain
    #ajg: uncomment next line when debugging authentication
    #debug_peer_list = smtp.cs.nyu.edu

Good luck,
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Kevin O'Gorman]

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On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 7:35 AM, Willie Wong <wwong@math.princeton.edu>wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 09:57:42PM -0800, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> > Some time ago, it appears, postfix stopped working for me.  I am no
> longer
> > able
> > to use it to send mail (usually to my ISP, where it gets routed).
> >
>
> Do you actually need a full blown mail server? If you just relay your
> mail to your ISP, then you may be able to simplify your life using
> something like nbsmtp.
>
> I used to take mail locally, via sendmail, since I stopped using uucp
around 1987.  When I found out about postfix, it
was good riddance to those re-write rules.  Then I simplified by sending it
all to the ISP so I now have just 3 mail spools:
1) gmail for all my mailing lists because they'll let me spool forever it
seems -- my quota is over 7GB and
I'm using maybe 30% after about 8 years.  This is stuff were privacy doesn't
matter to me.
2) My ISP, because it's more reliable than I can do at home.
3) Work, which I can't avoid.

At home I stuck to Postfix because until now it never gave me a lick of
trouble.  I'm pretty old and no longer
get much joy out of learning yet another tool for its own sake.  It's gotta
be LOTS better than what I have.  In the
last year I've only taken on m4, Fireworks and Dreamweaver.  There are good
enough reasons for each.

If I were a few decades younger, this would have been good advice, so thanks
for the tip.

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD

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Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Adam Carter]

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On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Kevin O'Gorman <kogorman@gmail.com> wrote:

> Some time ago, it appears, postfix stopped working for me.  I am no longer
> able
> to use it to send mail (usually to my ISP, where it gets routed).
>
> It used to work fine, and if there was an elog that I needed to follow, I
> missed it.
>

Do you use SPF? If so, the recent Perl 5.12 update killed my Postfix+SPF
setup. In the main.info log;
warning: command /usr/bin/perl exit status 2.

Haven't had time to look at it yet.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Kevin O'Gorman]

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On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 1:18 AM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 21:57:42 -0800, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>
> > I don't even know where to start on this.
>
> I'd start by looking at the logs, I think Postfix logs to syslog by
> default. The first question is is it even starting?
>

Color me stupid.  It was stopped.  It started when I told it to in
/etc/init.d.
Now I have to wonder what stopped it.  Judging from the mail that got
through all of a sudden, I guess it stopped
about 2 weeks ago.  I'll have to watch this...

Thanks.

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD

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Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[kashani]

On 11/15/2010 8:37 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> Color me stupid.  It was stopped.  It started when I told it to in
> /etc/init.d.
> Now I have to wonder what stopped it.  Judging from the mail that got
> through all of a sudden, I guess it stopped
> about 2 weeks ago.  I'll have to watch this...

	IIRC updates of the Postfix package that could in result in data loss 
of queued mail will shutdown Postfix before preceding. Looks like 
Postfix 2.7.1 hit on Nov 4 and 2.6.7 has been in the system since June. 
I'd bet you ran the update, Postfix shutdown for safety, and you missed 
the screen output about restarting it.

kashani

Re: [gentoo-user] Postfix broken

[Kevin O'Gorman]

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On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 2:47 PM, kashani <kashani-list@badapple.net> wrote:

> On 11/15/2010 8:37 AM, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>
>> Color me stupid.  It was stopped.  It started when I told it to in
>> /etc/init.d.
>> Now I have to wonder what stopped it.  Judging from the mail that got
>> through all of a sudden, I guess it stopped
>> about 2 weeks ago.  I'll have to watch this...
>>
>
>        IIRC updates of the Postfix package that could in result in data
> loss of queued mail will shutdown Postfix before preceding. Looks like
> Postfix 2.7.1 hit on Nov 4 and 2.6.7 has been in the system since June. I'd
> bet you ran the update, Postfix shutdown for safety, and you missed the
> screen output about restarting it.
>
> kashani
>
> That's probably right.  Emerges that take days have trained me to not to
watch them happen.  I read the latest elog of all packages once a month,
some send me mail; but if Postfix shut down before delivery, I would not get
it at all.  I use elogviewer once a month, so I'll probably see it in a
couple of weeks.

It's nice to know what happened.  Not much mail actually goes through this
system, so while this has
been something of a puzzle, no major harm was done.  It's nice to have the
explanation.

Thanks.

++ kevin


-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD

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