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Basic Mail DebuggingBasic Mail Debugging
Submitted by Benjamin Melançon on December 27, 2006 - 11:35am
Mail doesn't work? Not receiving e-mails? Any of those problems, don't do what I did: start with some basic mail troubleshooting:
You may want to check your /etc/syslog.conf file (vi /etc/syslog.conf) to make sure it's doing this:
# (- Log all the mail messages to one place.)
mail.* -/var/log/maillog
If so, then check out that log!
You can go directly to the end of it:
sudo tail /var/log/maillog
(Sudo may be required if you aren't logged in as root, which you shouldn't be.)
You can even keep it open and updating itself, while you try sending messages or such, or even restart Postfix or all kinds of things while watching the mail error log:
sudo tail -f /var/log/maillog
The email error logger is your best friend.
keywords: after disabling virtual mapping no e-mail
(Note that wasn't the real problem... we don't think, it was just a coincidence. A line in the main Postfix configuration file had been added at the same time, and it was breaking the SMTP side of Postfix (smtpd). So the fix, once the error log showed the way, was placing a # sign in front of that line to comment it out.
A slice of maillog output:
Dec 27 07:05:47 vps postfix/master[14202]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling
Dec 27 07:07:43 vps postfix/smtpd[5241]: fatal: unknown notify_classes value "address@example.com" in "address@example.com"
Dec 27 07:07:44 vps postfix/master[14202]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd pid 5241 exit status 1
Dec 27 07:07:44 vps postfix/master[14202]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling
The problem line was then easy to find, in /etc/postfix/main.cf:
notify_classes = comm@uas.coop
And the fix even easier: sudo vi /etc/postfix/main.cf, press i to enter insert mode and place a comment in front of that line:
# notify_classes = comm@uas.coop. Esc to leave edit mode, shift-ZZ to save and close, and then sudo /etc/init.d/postfix stop and sudo /etc/init.d/postfix start. (That's overkill, postfix reload would have worked.)
Mail doesn't work? Not receiving e-mails? Any of those problems, don't do what I did: start with some basic mail troubleshooting:
You may want to check your /etc/syslog.conf file (vi /etc/syslog.conf) to make sure it's doing this:
# (- Log all the mail messages to one place.)
mail.* -/var/log/maillog
If so, then check out that log!
You can go directly to the end of it:
sudo tail /var/log/maillog
(Sudo may be required if you aren't logged in as root, which you shouldn't be.)
You can even keep it open and updating itself, while you try sending messages or such, or even restart Postfix or all kinds of things while watching the mail error log:
sudo tail -f /var/log/maillog
The email error logger is your best friend.
keywords: after disabling virtual mapping no e-mail
(Note that wasn't the real problem... we don't think, it was just a coincidence. A line in the main Postfix configuration file had been added at the same time, and it was breaking the SMTP side of Postfix (smtpd). So the fix, once the error log showed the way, was placing a # sign in front of that line to comment it out.
A slice of maillog output:
Dec 27 07:05:47 vps postfix/master[14202]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling
Dec 27 07:07:43 vps postfix/smtpd[5241]: fatal: unknown notify_classes value "address@example.com" in "address@example.com"
Dec 27 07:07:44 vps postfix/master[14202]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd pid 5241 exit status 1
Dec 27 07:07:44 vps postfix/master[14202]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling
The problem line was then easy to find, in /etc/postfix/main.cf:
notify_classes = comm@uas.coop
And the fix even easier: sudo vi /etc/postfix/main.cf, press i to enter insert mode and place a comment in front of that line:
# notify_classes = comm@uas.coop. Esc to leave edit mode, shift-ZZ to save and close, and then sudo /etc/init.d/postfix stop and sudo /etc/init.d/postfix start. (That's overkill, postfix reload would have worked.)
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