Sympatico and postfix -- recent problems
Orange Free
account to send email from my Linux box. Over the last two years or
so, we have been using a DSL line. Before that, we used ordinary
dial-up without difficulty. I run Redhat 8.0 at the moment, with
procmail, fetchmail, mutt and postfix (ie, something like the usual
suspects).
Until about three weeks ago, all was right with the world. Then, I
started getting errors from my Sympatico smtp server when I tried
sending mail using mutt and postfix. The errors consisted of
"Connection refused" or "relaying to [insert name of addressee host
here] not allowed" or something to that effect. I haven't changed
anything in my configuration. Sympatico denies having changed
anything at their end, but frankly I don't believe them.
I can still send mail from Mozilla without difficulty. I sent a test
message to myself using Mozilla. An examination of the test message's
header reveals that Mozilla identified itself as sending from a
machine with a (dynamic) IP address (ie my box's temporary IP
address). My understanding is that postfix typically does not do
this. Instead, the IP address or hostname is "hard coded" so that the
message identifies itself as coming from "postfix at
localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.0]". Is this the problem?
Fyi, I have implemented header re-writing with postfix so that the
envelope "From" header shows the email coming from my real Sympatico
email address.
I tried switching to null-mailer today, but I get the same errors.
I have three more questions:
1. Has anybody else recently encountered the problem I describe above?
2. How can I watch my MTA's conversation with the remote smtp server
to see what is going on? Assume that I know how to interpret such a
conversation if I can see it.
3. Does anybody have any suggestions on what else I should try?
I am desperate for help because (a) I love mutt and (b) I love being
able to edit my messages using post-mode in emacs.
Doug Mitton
What are you using for your smart host? I was using
smtp10.sympatico.ca for several weeks ... since the last email
problems surfaced. Over the weekend I started getting similar errors.
This morning I saw a post in sympatico.highspeed ... it stated to "go
back to the original smtp1.sympatico.ca. I did it today and now the
problem is resolved ... for now. I use smail!
Good luck!
--
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http://www3.sympatico.ca/dmitton
SPAM Reduction: Remove "x." from my domain.
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Orange Free
wrote:
> What are you using for your smart host? I was using
> smtp10.sympatico.ca for several weeks ... since the last email
> problems surfaced. Over the weekend I started getting similar
> errors.
I was on smtp1 when the problem first surfaced. After three phone
calls to support, someone finally told me to switch to smtp8, which
worked until yesterday. Yesterday, they told me that server was down
and then, in my second call to them, they told me no it wasn't (and it
never had been). Anyway, neither smtp8 or smtp1 worked yesterday or
this morning.
> This morning I saw a post in sympatico.highspeed ... it stated to
> "go back to the original smtp1.sympatico.ca. I did it today and now
> the problem is resolved ... for now. I use smail!
Ok, I'll try it again and see what happens.
Part of the problem with Sympatico is that as soon as you tell them
you run Linux, they stop listening. I kept telling them that I wasn't
asking for help with my box, I just wanted to know what the hell
*they* were up to. That didn't get me any where of course. I also
told one guy that they should be giving me a *discount* for using
Linux because my machine isn't vulnerable to 99% of the M$-related
crap out there that is choking the Net.
Thanks,
John
Doug Mitton
If I thought I wouldn't get a DROID I'd make the same request ...
discount for not using Windows that is! I always like the looks on
peoples faces when they ask the question "what do you use for virus
protection" and I reply "Linux"!
I try not to call in to the help line unless the service is down for a
LONG time ... which has only happened once in over 3 years. They told
me there were nor problems. After a bit of a dance around they
escalated me up and said I'd get a call within 24 hours (?). At
exactly 5 pm on that day the service came back on. Very strange!
Good luck on your problem.
Orange Free
wrote:
> Good luck on your problem.
Thanks. Well, the plot thickens. Using the very helpful directions
at AOL, I telnetted to the Sympatico servers (both smtp1 and smtp8).
I HELO'd using 'localhost' and 'localhost.localdomain', and received
'250' as the response. I then sent email to myself at work, once
using as the MAIL FROM "header" my home email address and again using
a deliberately munged version of that same address. Both messages
were sent successfully!!
postfix, however, still cannot talk to these servers. The error is
"server refused mail service". nullmailer gave me the same errors.
So, maybe the problem is at my end, some how, although I will swear
that I haven't changed my postfix configuration.
Michael Buchenrieder
<Entering wild_guess mode>
You didn't perhaps hardcode the IP addresses of the Sympatico
mailservers in /etc/hosts and they changed them? Try running
postfix with strace and see where postfix is trying to connect
to, and what the result actually looks like.
</Leaving wild_guess mode>
Michael
--
Michael Buchenrieder * mi...@scrum.greenie.muc.de * http://www.muc.de/~mibu
Lumber Cartel Unit #456 (TINLC) & Official Netscum
Note: If you want me to send you email, don't munge your address.
Orange Free
> <Entering wild_guess mode>
>
> You didn't perhaps hardcode the IP addresses of the Sympatico
> mailservers in /etc/hosts and they changed them? Try running postfix
> with strace and see where postfix is trying to connect to, and what
> the result actually looks like.
>
> </Leaving wild_guess mode>
Thanks for the wild guess. mailq shows that postfix did try to send
the messages in the queue to the ip address of the relevant server.
maillog shows the same thing. The ip address of the "smart relay" is
"hard coded" into the postfix main.cf file. My /etc/hosts only has
the loopback in it.