Hello all,

I have installed Qmail with addons. It also has courierpassd installed on port 106.
I need to open the port to accept connections atleast for the localhost.
I tried it with iptables but still connections are being refused.

First rule of thumb until you are skilled at iptables, disable iptables while configuring new server software to work. Then, once it works, reenable your firewall with the appropriate rules for the new service.

so, does it all work w/out any iptables/?

Yup,stoping iptables would work .
Firsly check whether the port is in listening state..
using netstat -a,
If it is nt,try stopping iptables service..

That was what I did.
Iptables were disabled while configured courierpassd and qmail.
Now I need to open 106 for courierpassd to run.
Without or with iptables the port 106 was closed.
I need to explicitly open it.
I tried using iptables but still the port is closed.

Well man even with iptables flushed out nmap does not show 106 port number to be open.
Explicitly accepting connections through iptables does not seem to be the option as the port itself is closed. Once it is open iptables can be used to accept the connections.
But first for that nmap should show the status of 106 to be open. And that is what I need.

No, you don't open the port. The successful configuration and starting of the courierpassd application opens the port.

Don't use nmap as your diagnostic, it is the wrong tool for the job. Use netstat:

If you don't have this line, you have not started courierpassd correctly. Do you see it in your process output ?

Again, stop wasting your time with iptables - you don't have the program working correctly yet.

In the documentation itself it is clearly mentioned that courierpassd needs port 106 to be open.
And that seems correct as I can not telnet localhost on port 106.
The service courierpassd is running. Explicitly starting it from the location starts the operation and I can change the password for the user.
Now if the documentation says that port be open then I would not like to argue on that.

You're confused.

You said iptables was flushed out. So we're not talking about opening ports in IPTABLES. We're only talking about courierpassd. What I am trying to communicate is that courierpassd opens port 106 and listens for incoming connections. You don't have to do anything to make that part happen - just start courierpassd.

Now we're talking about an entirely different matter if you have OTHER TCP/IP blocks in the way.

Show data - show the output of the netstat command.

Without further data, I can't see that we're going to make any progress.

netstat does not show any output.
But courierpassd is shown as on in chkconfig.

If netstat does not show the port open, and ps does not show courierpassd as running, it is NOT running.

HOWDY.....how did I miss ps???
Thanks for that

This is the output of the ps command on the system.

#ps aux | grep courierpassd
root 2814 0.0 0.0 3880 680 pts/1 S+ 11:58 0:00 grep courierpassd

I hope you have now convinced yourself that courierpassd is not running.

This is really annoying.
How do I start it?
Giving command courierpassd on terminal works for me. I can then change the passowrd for the user.
But I want this to start it automatically.
How can this be done?
I went with the steps that are given in qmailrocks.org.

Ok, good. Now we can get down to business. In the README, there is this:

So, have you created the proper xinetd.d/courierpassd file, or added the clause to xinetd.conf ? If so, show that configuration.

Or you may have inetd (instead of xinetd). In that case, show the line you added to inetd.conf.