Trying to Understand , mail system messages to root

northpoint · 12-25-2009, 11:06 AM

Greetings and Salutations !

and Happy Holidays.

I have questions concerning receiving messages through mail and cron for root.

I've tried:

Code:

 # mail -u root - No mail for root

Code:

cat /var/log/spooler

has no output

Code:

# cat /var/log/maillog

mailog - displays

Code:

sendmail[3508]: nBP8S391003508: from=root, size=2266, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200912250828.nBP8S391003508@my.server>, relay=root@localhost

What does this mean?

I understand it has nothing to do with running mail server, but receiving system messages.
Is there another way to see these messages?
which ones can i disable that aren't necessary?
And I found a script for Arno's iptables firewall logs , that is supposed to mail root the out put
script :

Code:

  #! /bin/sh
   #
   #  /etc/cron.daily/fwfilter - Arno's iptables-firewall activity
   #  monitoring script.
   # 

   FWFILTER=/path/to/arno's/fwfilter
   FWLOG=/var/log/firewall
   DAY="$(/bin/date '+%b %e' --date=yesterday)"
   
   if [ -f "${FWFILTER}" -a -f "${FWLOG}" ]; then
      /bin/grep "${DAY}" ${FWLOG} | ${FWFILTER}
   fi

Thanks for any feedback

business_kid · 12-26-2009, 07:25 AM

No comment on the script. /var/spool/mail/root is usually root's mailbox, and should be perms 0600.
Many mailers are unhappy mailing to root, you have to use an alias. It's a permissions thing. They have a 'mexican wave' of processes firing the mail to each other; all have different uids and the last has the uid of the recipient. If one gets root, it will default to nobody :-/. Your like on the log looks like a mail sent to root 2266 bytes, from root to root. That bit is hardly kosher either, having the recipient and sender as the same guy. Get a luser or two into the picture.

kbp · 12-26-2009, 07:41 AM

Take a look at /etc/aliases, if you see an entry like :

Code:

root:		kbp

.. then there will never be any mail in roots mailbox, check kbp's instead

cheers

AwesomeMachine · 12-26-2009, 08:21 AM

On a desktop or laptop system, mail is sent to the user's mail, not the root account.

northpoint · 12-31-2009, 09:55 PM

thanks for the feedback