Re: [SLE] Postfix question

From: Bob S (usr_at_sanctum.com)
Date: 09/20/04

  • Next message: Bill Wisse: "Re: [SLE] Writing to a usb drive" 
    To: suse-linux-e@suse.com
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 01:17:46 -0400

    On Sunday 19 September 2004 02:49, Jeffrey L. Taylor wrote:
    >Quoting Bob S <usr@sanctum.com>:
    >> Hello SuSE people,
    >>
    >> Have a question about Postfix. Back about the 9th or 10th I upgraded
    >> KDE to 3.3. That included Kmail which is my only e-mail program.
    >
    >You need to have some kind of Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) like Postfix
    >on most Linux systems. It looks like it is not correctly setup,
    >though there are other possibilities like your ISP is blocking outgoing
    >mail that bypasses their SMTP servers, a common attempt at reducing
    >SPAM, especially from zombies/trojans. Linux.local may be your
    >machine, check the IP address.
    >

    Thanks to all who contributed to this question. Simple question generated
    quite a large response and as a result I learned quite a bit. Do have a few
    specific questions from the various responses.

    Jeffrey, Sent off an email to my ISP tonight asking about the blocking and/or
    the POP before SMTP thing. Will let the list know their response.

    Theo, you stated:
    >That's not the problem, the problem was a DNS lookup failure
    >according to the bounce message, Postfix couldn't find a place to
    >drop the mail because the DNS didn't give it one, and so it returned
    >the mail to sender.
    Please elaborate. Where and why couldn't Postfix find the DNS. The DNS for my
    ISP ? or for the recipient? And if so how do I check it? The DNS for my ISP
    is defined in PPP someplace.

    Now, if I read the posts from Theo, I do not NEED an MTA - OK - understood ??
    But I DO have Postfix. According to Patrick Postfix is needed internally by
    SuSE for things like mail for root etc. Good- OK Carlos says that Kmail
    actually uses Postfix to send it's mail. ( required?) And Patrick agrees,
    stating: >"Yes, he is mixing daemon with MTA.  The MTA is still
    required/installed." ----- Or, only if it is there to use? But Kmail can
    actually do it all by itself? A little confused here !!

    Then Scott responded to Martin: (On the addended post) (sorry about that)
    >> Hmm - this just caught my eye. I've been running Suse for around 6 months
    >> now, and had wondered about this issue. Am I supposed to be receiving
    >>emails from the system ? If so, is there something special (perhaps in
    >> kmail) I need to do to receive them ? Postfix is running on the system, but
    >> I've done nothing myself to manually configure it, and indeed can't find
    >> anything in the help / admin guide about it. I'd thought about disabling
    >> postfix, since it doesn't appear to be serving any useful purpose here, as
    >> I fetch / send all my mail direct via my ISPs servers.
    >

    >   Alias root to your email account at your ISP and set your ISP's mail
    >server as the relay_host and you should get any local mail in your normal
    >mailbox.
    Scott, please elaborate; Alias root to my ISP ??? Do you mean connect with my
    ISP and change settings?? How is that possible ??

    Now, on to my final understanding:
    Carlos wrote:
    >> The question is: Does Postfix have anything to do with Kmail??

    >It's a different program; however, postfix handles mail sent to it by
    >kmail and others, and does the "real" sending.

    OK, It is what it is - But only if Postfix is installed?????

    >> And were the messages received by
    >> the server?

    >Your local machine server, yes. Remote or ISP server, no.

    OK - are you saying my local server on my machine? That nothing was accepted
    by the ISP and that there was/is no record of that mail message at the ISP??

      See, that is what confuses me. I download messages from my ISP and receive
    these "undelivered" messages. Are they not coming from the ISP? Coming from
    my "local" server? which coincidentally downloads the messages to me at the
    same time? Are you saying my machine is holding the messages for six days and
    then notifying me they are undeliverable??

    >> even though it was stated that my messages were refused? and just
    >> now returned? and why if they had valid delivery addresses?

    >No, they were not refused, nor rejected. They were indeed returned because
    >of unknown address.

    Yes, but when??? When I sent them, or were they actually on the ISP server
    trying for six days?

    >Look carefully:

    >> Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender

    >        See? Returned.

    Yes, again, but to who? my local server or to the ISP for resending ?

    >> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on linux.local
    >> X-KMail-EncryptionState:  

    >>        (spam check done on receipt, by kmail)

    >> This is the Postfix program at host linux.local.

    >     It is your local machine who is speaking, not the ISP.

    OK - meaning ?? (explain the mechanics please)

    >> I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be
    >> be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

    >        Main problem: it could not deliver for some reason.

    >> For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

    >        Notice that _you_ are the postmaster, so you have to give further
    >      assistance to the user - also you :-p

    If, I assume what you are saying, is all on the local machine, where would I
    find these files??

    >        And the problem was:

    >> <Flashupgrades@esupport.com>: Host or domain name not found. Name
    >>service  error
    >>     for name=esupport.com type=MX: Host not found, try again

    >        See? It could not find the host (machine) named "esupport.com".  
    >        Notice the "try again" part: so it did, for six days, before
    >        giving up and returning the mail to the sender.

    Again, from where? is it trying, internally on my own box, or out there on the
    ISP??

    >> Would like to know about this and should I be disabling Postfix somehow?

    >Disable Postfix? Why? postfix is working correctly.

    >Now, why did it say that "esupport.com" does not exist? That's a diferent
    >problem. Try this on your machine that has the local postfix server:

    Probably because of the blocking or pop before SMTP thing. As you said. "a
    different problem" (but certainly related though)

    Anyway, thanks to all who contributed. Let's see what my ISP has to say about
    this.

    Bob S. 

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  • Next message: Bill Wisse: "Re: [SLE] Writing to a usb drive"

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