I am teaching using an Ubuntu 10 server. The course stipulates the students use the mail command to send me assessment work, however I can't get mail to work (I did have to install it in the first place). After I end the message with a dot I get the message "send-mail: cannot open mail:25".
Can anyone help me?

Hi,

Check if mailserver is running on port 25 :
Also please provide the command you are running to send email.

I used the command and got no reply so I assume nothing is happening on port 25.
I am trying to use the actual mail command (because it is stipulated in the students' assessment).

>maureen@ubuntu:~$ mail maureen
>Subject: text
>more text
>.
>EOT
>maureen@ubuntu:~$ send-mail: Cannot open mail:25

I have now also found that I can install mailutils and get the mail command to run if I use Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop. So if nothing else works at least I have a solution.

Thanks for your help

Hi,

You can install mailutils on ubuntu 10 server too.
It will install also exim mailserver .
If the serve will not start automatically you can try to start it using :

Thanks

The errors I am getting currently follow on from installing heirloom-mailx.

I was using it because when I try to install mailutils I get this this:

maureen@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install mailutils
>[sudo] password for maureen:
>Reading package lists... Done
>Building dependency tree
>Reading state information... Done
>Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
>requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
>distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
>or been moved out of Incoming.
>The following information may help to resolve the situation:

>The following packages have unmet dependencies:
> mailutils: Depends: libmailutils2 (> 1:2.1) but it is not going to be installed
> Depends: libmysqlclient16 (>= 5.1.21-1) but it is not installable
>E: Broken packages

If I then try to install these last 2 packages I get more errors.

>maureen@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install libmailutils2
>Reading package lists... Done
>Building dependency tree
>Reading state information... Done
>Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
>requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
>distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
>or been moved out of Incoming.
>The following information may help to resolve the situation:

>The following packages have unmet dependencies:
> libmailutils2: Depends: libmysqlclient16 (>= 5.1.21-1) but it is not installable
>E: Broken packages
>maureen@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient16
>Reading package lists... Done
>Building dependency tree
>Reading state information... Done
>Package libmysqlclient16 is not available, but is referred to by another package.
>This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
>is only available from another source
>E: Package libmysqlclient16 has no installation candidate
>maureen@ubuntu:~$

I am wondering if there is an inherent problem in the version of Ubuntu I am using?
It seems strange that I can get it to work on Ubuntu 9.04 with no problems, while every effort in Ubuntu 10.4 just brings up fresh errors.

Thank you for spending time on this with me. I really appreciate your efforts - even if I don't get it to work I am learning more about Linux Admin.

Hi,

Strange, I didn't have any issues installing mailutils on Ubuntu 10.04
What returns :
?

Nothing:
>maureen@ubuntu:~$ aptitude search libmysqlclient16
>maureen@ubuntu:~$

Thanks again

Hi,

This package is included in main ubuntu repo.
I don't know why apt didn't find it .

What version of ubuntu you have 10.10 or 10.04 ?
Try to check /etc/apt/sources.list file, and search if there exists :
if you have installed 10.10 version or
if you have 10.04