I'm running Ubuntu Hardy Heron ...

I followed this tutorial to setup mail and also used some info from a few others: http://jonsview.com/2008/07/14/setti...ix-and-courier

Here is the output of my testing:

$ telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 verticalweb ESMTP Sendmail 8.14.2/8.14.2/Debian-2build1; Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:51:07 -0500; (No UCE/UBE) logging access from: localhost(OK)-localhost [127.0.0.1]

ehlo localhost
250-verticalweb Hello localhost [127.0.0.1], pleased to meet you
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-PIPELINING
250-EXPN
250-VERB
250-8BITMIME
250-SIZE
250-DSN
250-ETRN
250-AUTH DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5
250-DELIVERBY
250 HELP

MAIL FROM: <myemail@mydomain.com>
250 2.1.0 <myemail@mydomain.com>... Sender ok

RCPT TO: <anotheremail@ofmine.com>
250 2.1.5 <anotheremail@ofmine.com>... Recipient ok

data
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself

test
.
421 4.3.0 collect: Cannot write ./dfn3NKp75U016905 (bfcommit, uid=0, gid=121): No such file or directory
Connection closed by foreign host.

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I tailed /var/log/mail.info:

Apr 23 15:54:29 verticalweb sm-mta[16905]: n3NKp75U016905: SYSERR(root): collect: Cannot write ./dfn3NKp75U016905 (bfcommit, uid=0, gid=121): No such file or directory
Apr 23 15:54:29 verticalweb sm-mta[16905]: n3NKp75U016905: from=<myemail@domain.com>, size=5, class=0, nrcpts=1, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA-v4, relay=localhost [127.0.0.1]


Okay, so it seems to be a permissions issue or something. Or, maybe there is something else that I'm missing. Who can help?!

You're running sendmail, not postfix.

So how can I fix this? I want to be able to send/receive...

I don't know the answer, but hopefully someone who uses ubuntu can step in now and tell us
the proper way to switch MTAs. Or, you can read the ubuntu documentation.

Or do it through Synaptic / your package manager of choice.

Okay, I went through the Ubuntu Server Guide doc to setup mail. I even did what you suggested. But when I try to test, I still get an error message. Is there a different way to test to see if outgoing mail is working? Just not sure if this is the way to do it or not...




tdash@verticalweb:/home/tommy$ sudo aptitude remove sendmail
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Writing extended state information... Done
Building tag database... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
linux-image-server linux-server ntfs-3g
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
tdash@verticalweb:/home/tommy$ sudo invoke-rc.d postfix start
* Starting Postfix Mail Transport Agent postfix [ OK ]
tdash@verticalweb:/home/tommy$ telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 verticalweb ESMTP Sendmail 8.14.2/8.14.2/Debian-2build1; Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:23:41 -0500; (No UCE/UBE) logging access from: localhost(OK)-localhost [127.0.0.1]
ehlo localhost
250-verticalweb Hello localhost [127.0.0.1], pleased to meet you
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-PIPELINING
250-EXPN
250-VERB
250-8BITMIME
250-SIZE
250-DSN
250-ETRN
250-AUTH DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5
250-DELIVERBY
250 HELP
MAIL FROM: <tdash@localhost>
250 2.1.0 <tdash@localhost>... Sender ok
RCPT TO: <tdnnash25@gmail.com>
250 2.1.5 <tdnnash25@gmail.com>... Recipient ok
data
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
test
.
421 4.3.0 collect: Cannot write ./dfn3OHNf2E024152 (bfcommit, uid=0, gid=121): No such file or directory
Connection closed by foreign host.

Either sendmail is still installed. This is how you should be able to tell it isn't: If it still says installed, you need to uninstall it still.

Or else, it's still running. Try just rebooting your system to get rid of any leftover processes.

- Arch

Thanks for your input. Here is the output of that command


tdash@verticalweb:/home/tommy$ sudo aptitude show sendmail
Package: sendmail
State: not installed
Version: 8.14.2-2build1
Priority: extra
Section: universe/mail
Maintainer: Ubuntu MOTU Developers <ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com>
Uncompressed Size: 254k
Depends: sendmail-base, sendmail-bin, sendmail-cf, sensible-mda
Suggests: rmail, sendmail-doc
Replaces: sendmail-tls


I will reboot the server soon and post my results.

After rebooting the server, I can now send mail from telnet ... Now I just need to figure out how to make sure users can have an account in an email client, etc.

I also need to make sure that pop3/incoming mail works. Any tips as I dive into this?

Install Dovecot and then point Thunderbird at your mailserver. Should work just fine.

- Arch

Ok, I installed Dovecot and setup my account in Thunderbird.

Currently I have my mail server in thunderbird set to the IP address of my server. The thunderbird server settings are set to "TLS if available". When I click "Get Mail" in Thunderbird, it prompts me to view a Security Certificate from the server, but it warns me that it has expired. I continue anyway ... then I get another popup dialog box right after that that says "You have attempted to establish a connection with "IP address" (has my public IP). However, the security certificate presented belongs to "servername" (has my server name). It is possible, though unlikely, that someone may be trying to intercept your communication with this web site. If you suspect the certificate shown does not belong to "IP address", please cancel the connection and notify the site administrator". I click on OK and it seems to proceed to connect to the server and it tells me that I do not have any messages. However, there is at least 1 email in my account at /var/spool/mail/"user"

I probably don't have something configured right, but not sure what that may be.

Many thanks in advance!

I figured out my problem ...

I had to change the maildir location to /var/spool/mail/%u

I'm getting relay access denied errors now.

I have a user on my server called "test" and I tried to send an email from my GMAIL account to test@mydomain.com and got a returned error message about relay access denied ...

dns to my server works ... I can telnet on port 25 and 110 - any ideas what I need to do in order to make this work? Now the goal is to get people on the Internet to be able to email my users on the box ... so test@myserver.com will get email when checking email via Thunderbird or client of their choice

I would guess your setting of "mydestination" in postfix's main.cf does not include mydomain.com

Can you should postconf -n?

Thanks, this was the problem ... I did have mail.mydomain.com, but I added mydomain.com and this resolved the problem.