Hi:

Ive been trying to get someone who knows the RaQ well to help me on a problem I am having.

My Email Server stop working. I can not send nor receive emails, I tried restarting sendmail, and it does not go through the full restart. It stops at >Setting Up Mail Service:<

I can telnet port 110, but port 25 won't respond. Can anyone give me some help?

Thanks in advance for help.

Does the server continue booting up all the way and just the LCD message is stuck?

Any unusual errors in /var/log/maillog or /var/log/messages?

Are you able to physically connect to the machine with a serial cable to see what's happening during startup?

FYI, sendmail will wait a LONG time (eventually times out after many minutes) if DNS isn't set up properly...

Need a little more info before diagnosis can be rendered... :)

Here is a suggestion.

Loging using ssh, su , then issue the following comands

killall sendmail
/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail restart

hope this helps.

Thanks. This is all it did. is that right?

[root admin]# killall sendmail
[root admin]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail restart
Shutting down Mail Service: sendmail ok
Setting up Mail Service: sendmail
[root admin]#

yes correct, it should be working fine now.

It still does not work. Is there anyway I can install sendmail?

Thanks

Are you still unable to telnet to port 25?

There is 1 minute delay to return a response from port 25 -0500

Port 110 returns fine.

Thanks again.

Also to note there is a 190 messages in /var/spool/mail/admin & saved 14 messages in mbox.

How do I delete these messsages?

Originally posted by about2flip
There is 1 minute delay to return a response from port 25 -0500

Port 110 returns fine.

Thanks again.

So, the mail server is up and running, it is just a delay this time.

Originally posted by about2flip
Also to note there is a 190 messages in /var/spool/mail/admin & saved 14 messages in mbox.

How do I delete these messsages?


To delete these messages, please do the following.

login as admin

mail

delete 1-190

q


OR

you can do the following

login using ssh and su

cd /var/spool/mail/
rm admin
touch admin
chmod 600 admin
chown admin admin
chgrp admin admin


That's it.

yes, and also the mail is coming back to me when I sent a test. This is weird, and I've been trying to figure this out for weeks.

Is there anyway to re-install sendmail?

Thanks and I appreciate all your help.

I think re-installing sendmail will not help. Also re-installing it is a risk, as you have to know exactly all the configuration files and so on. You may get the rpm from rpmfind.net and search for sendmail for redhat 6.2

You say that the mail returns, this means 2 things.

1- the mail server is running well and need not to be installed as it returns emails to you, that means it is phisically working fine.
2- could be a quota problem or pop before smtp problem or denied hosts problem.

If you post the error message that comes with the returned email, it may help figure it out.

Here we go. Now note that info@aeromessenger.com does work, and it does resolve because I get email everyday on this address from others.


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

The original message was received at Sat, 30 Nov 2002 07:43:07 -0500 from pool-151-198-136-252.mad.east.verizon.net [151.198.136.252]

----- The following addresses had transient non-fatal errors ----- <test@amazingmugs.com>

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to amazingmugs.com.:
>>> MAIL From:<info@aeromessenger.com> SIZE=2999
<<< 451 4.1.8 <info@aeromessenger.com>... Domain of sender address info@aeromessenger.com does not resolve <info@amazingmugs.com>... Deferred: 451 4.1.8 <info@aeromessenger.com>... Domain of sender address info@aeromessenger.com does not resolve
Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
Will keep trying until message is 5 days old

This problem is due to that the mail server is unable to connect to the dns servers that it looks into.

Ok, here is the solution.

pico /etc/resolve.conf

you will find something like

nameserver 1.1.1.1
nameserver 2.2.2.2


try to ping the name servers to sse if they are working. If they respond to pings with high delays or does not ping at all, then you will have to try other name servers. If they ping quickly, then try to telnet to port 53 of the name servers, they may be not running, which is most likely is the case. If one of them is working fine, then just put it on top of the other.

So you need to use other name servers in /etc/resolv.conf

Then, just restart sendmail

killall sendmail
/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail start

Hope this helps.

Did that, and it jumps to a blank screen with commands on the bottom. There are no nameservers listed here. Do I add them and then save the files?

Hmmm, If I have to add them do I point it to the namesever running the DNS?

Thanks

sorry, it is

/etc/resolv.conf

my spelling was wrong.

And, no do not use yours, please use any other caching only dns servers.

permission denied.

I even tried the root admin, and still permission denied.

:(

sorry, forgot to put pico in front. I see the problem. It is the wrong IP address listed. should I change it to the proper IP?

Thanks

.

The IPs you see are for the caching only name servers of your network. Did you check them as above?

It worked. THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH!

you are most welcome. I am realy glad for you, wish you all the best!