Mail Problems

[pbharris]

hello,
there are messages from my mail server saying

**********************************************
** THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY **
** YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE **
**********************************************

The original message was received at Wed, 19 Feb 2003 23:09:19 -0600
from pbharris@localhost

----- Transcript of session follows -----
pbharris_359@yahoo.com... Deferred: Connection refused by localhost.localdomain.
Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
Will keep trying until message is 5 days old

this one i eventually got back, my other one sent to my isp email was never delievered. i am guessing my ISP emails system filters for mail from unreolved hosts and junks them.

paul

[demian]

[quote author=pbharris link=board=1;threadid=6409;start=0#60604 date=1045934626]
hello,
there are messages from my mail server saying

pbharris_359@yahoo.com... Deferred: Connection refused by localhost.localdomain.

this one i eventually got back, my other one sent to my isp email was never delievered. i am guessing my ISP emails system filters for mail from unreolved hosts and junks them.

paul


[/quote]

So your own server refuses connection? Do you have anything listening on port 25 at all? (Check [x]inetd.conf)

While it might well be possible that your isp blocks unresolvable IP addresses your mailserver should still send a bounce message saying delivery has failed and why. Mail should never just disappear... Something seems very wrong here.

I don't even know the name of the log files sendmail uses but you should try monitoring them with tail -f while you send mail and see if you get any pointers as to where in the process the mail vanishes.

[pbharris]

hi demain,
here is what i have from the tail -f message:

Feb 23 12:35:38 bugs sendmail[11666]: h1NIZbto011666: to=pbharris@covad.net, ctladdr=pbharris (500/100), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=
00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=30039, relay=localhost.localdomain. [127.0.0.1], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by loc
alhost.localdomain.
Feb 23 12:45:23 bugs sendmail[11915]: h1NIjLV5011915: from=xplanet, size=57851, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200302231845.h1NIjLV5011915@bugs.harris. org>, relay=xplanet@localhost
Feb 23 12:45:23 bugs sendmail[11915]: h1NIjLV5011915: to=xplanet, ctladdr=xplanet (502/501), delay=00:00:02, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=30245, relay=localhost.localdomain. [127.0.0.1], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by localhost.localdomain.

one thing i don't get is it looks like xplanet is mailing something and i don't have xmail mailing anything, cron does mail things too explanet though... that is the xplanet you wrote a PET for

[demian]

That sure looks like there's nothing listening on the smtp port (connection refused by localhost.localdomain). Try telnetting to the smtp port: type the things written in italics:

telnet 127.0.0.1 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 hamilton ESMTP Exim 3.36 #1 Mon, 24 Feb 2003 15:14:48 +0100
HELO localhost.localdomain
250 hamilton Hello demian at hamilton [127.0.0.1]
quit
221 hamilton closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

If what you get looks somewhat like the above there's actually a daemon listening on port 25. Also try localhost and your hostname instead of 127.0.0.1

If the initial telnet call results in a connection refused then there's nothing listening to that port. Check inet.conf (or xinetd.conf) for a line starting with smtp then.