Apache and smtp

Sayan Acharjee · 03-04-2010, 12:14 AM

Hi friends,
I have a LAMP server in my workplace, other clients (used by developers) are accessing it to save their projects in the server.
There is no sendmail configured in any of the systems including server, but I recently found that whenever a client is testing the mail sending function means they are sending mails using web pages they have created (e.g, submitting forms), the mails are actually delivering successfully.

If sendmail is not configured then how this is happening? Can apache send mails like that without sendmail support?
This is something new to me, and want your help to understand whats actually happening.

The recieved mail information is given below:

Quote:

Received: by x.x.x.x with SMTP id v27mr2384575wah.227.1267437927456;
Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:05:27 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <apache@localhost.localdomain>
Received: from localhost.localdomain ([x.x.x.x])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 6si25603938pzk.15.2010.03.01.02.04.56;
Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:05:27 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: x.x.x.x is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of apache@localhost.localdomain) client-ip=x.x.x.x;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: x.x.x.x is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of apache@localhost.localdomain) smtp.mail=apache@localhost.localdomain
Received: from apache by localhost.localdomain with local (Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from <apache@localhost.localdomain>)
id 1NlytS-0002Gr-HX
for dd@dd.com; Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:44:15 +0530
To: dd@dd.com
Subject: Auto Trade Place Website Visitor.
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="ISO-8859-1"
From: abc@rediffmail.com
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-ID: <kylano.1jrge@192.168.1.83>
Sender: Apache <apache@localhost.localdomain>
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:44:14 +0530

<html><body>This is a new mail from website visitor.Name: Koustav Pal City: KolkataState: WB Phone: 0338686 email: abc@rediffmail.comcomment: hiii Thank you. </body></html>

Thanks.............

blacky_5251 · 03-04-2010, 03:18 AM

Try connecting to port 25 on your server using telnet. The output might help you to learn what process is running there:-

Code:

2.6.18-164.11.1.el5.centos.plus[ian@www ~]$ telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1).
Escape character is '^]'.
220 www.example.com ESMTP Postfix
^]
telnet> quit
Connection closed.

As you can see, I have Postfix running on that port, not sendmail.

You can also use nmap and netstat to see what ports are open and the processes bound to them.

Sayan Acharjee · 03-04-2010, 03:34 AM

@blacky_5251, I tried connecting to port 25 using telnet but it froze like this:

Quote:

[root@localhost ~]# telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 localhost.localdomain ESMTP Exim 4.69 Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:58:48 +0530
|

And when I checked netstat output I found this entry:

Quote:

tcp 0 0 localhost.localdomain:55728 localhost.localdomain:smtp ESTABLISHED

So it seems smtp port is open and working, but does it mean the server is working as a SMTP server right now?
What I need to do to disable smtp??

blacky_5251 · 03-04-2010, 03:42 AM

You have Exim running, so you need to stop it from running, and disable it from starting when your server boots. I don't and haven't used Exim, so I'm not certain what the specific instructions will be to stop it and prevent it from restarting.

If you were running a RHEL based system, I would tell you to look in /etc/init.d for a script that controls Exim (let's says it is called eximd - just for our purposes here). Then you would use these commands to stop it and prevent it from restarting:-

Code:

service eximd stop
chkconfig eximd off

Your commands might be different - depending on your distro

Hope that gets you started on the trail.

Sayan Acharjee · 03-04-2010, 03:51 AM

I found the service named exim in /etc/inid.d, I din't know about this MTA

So I stopped it and found smtp server is now stopped.
And by the way, I'm using fedora 9

Thanks for your help................have a great day