[SOLVED] Qmail doesn't notify of failed deliveries

snake eyes · 03-09-2009, 05:55 AM

Hello

I'm using Qmail on RedHat4 server along with spamd, SquirrelMail and pop3d addons

Output of ps -A command is

Code:

mail control]# ps -A
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
    1 ?        00:00:01 init
    2 ?        00:00:00 migration/0
    3 ?        00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
    4 ?        00:00:00 migration/1
    5 ?        00:00:00 ksoftirqd/1
    6 ?        00:00:00 events/0
    7 ?        00:00:00 events/1
    8 ?        00:00:00 khelper
    9 ?        00:00:00 kacpid
   47 ?        00:00:00 kblockd/0
   48 ?        00:00:00 kblockd/1
   49 ?        00:00:00 khubd
   72 ?        00:00:00 pdflush
   73 ?        00:00:01 pdflush
   76 ?        00:00:00 aio/0
   74 ?        00:00:00 kswapd1
   75 ?        00:00:00 kswapd0
   77 ?        00:00:00 aio/1
  221 ?        00:00:00 kseriod
  339 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_0
  346 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_1
  373 ?        00:00:12 kjournald
 1268 ?        00:00:00 udevd
 1873 ?        00:00:00 shpchpd_event
 2158 ?        00:00:00 kauditd
 2420 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_2
 2421 ?        00:00:00 usb-storage
 2444 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_3
 2445 ?        00:00:00 usb-storage
 2594 ?        00:00:00 kmirrord
 2741 ?        00:00:04 kjournald
 2742 ?        00:00:00 kjournald
 2743 ?        00:00:03 kjournald
 2744 ?        00:00:19 kjournald
 2745 ?        00:00:00 kjournald
 3321 ?        00:00:14 syslogd
 3325 ?        00:00:00 klogd
 3334 ?        00:00:00 courierlogger
 3335 ?        00:00:00 authdaemond
 3343 ?        00:00:05 authdaemond
 3344 ?        00:00:05 authdaemond
 3345 ?        00:00:05 authdaemond
 3346 ?        00:00:06 authdaemond
 3347 ?        00:00:05 authdaemond
 3381 ?        00:00:19 sshd
 3391 ?        00:17:09 clamd
 3403 ?        00:00:04 courierlogger
 3404 ?        00:00:05 couriertcpd
 3423 ?        00:00:05 spamd
 3434 ?        00:00:00 httpd
 3443 ?        00:00:00 crond
 3450 ?        00:00:03 freshclam
 3456 ?        00:06:20 httpd
 3457 ?        00:06:22 httpd
 3458 ?        00:06:13 httpd
 3459 ?        00:06:26 httpd
 3460 ?        00:06:18 httpd
 3462 ?        00:00:00 mysqld_safe
 3472 tty1     00:00:00 mingetty
 3477 tty2     00:00:00 mingetty
 3479 tty3     00:00:00 mingetty
 3480 tty4     00:00:00 mingetty
 3529 tty5     00:00:00 mingetty
 3531 tty6     00:00:00 mingetty
 3533 ?        00:00:00 svscanboot
 4109 ?        00:00:08 svscan
 4110 ?        00:00:00 readproctitle
 4111 ?        00:00:00 supervise
 4112 ?        00:00:00 supervise
 4113 ?        00:00:00 supervise
 4114 ?        00:00:00 supervise
 4115 ?        00:00:00 supervise
 4116 ?        00:00:00 supervise
 4122 ?        00:00:01 multilog
 4124 ?        00:00:00 multilog
 4125 ?        00:00:01 multilog
 4135 ?        00:00:26 mysqld
 4146 ?        00:06:30 httpd
 4168 ?        00:06:32 httpd
 4916 ?        00:06:18 httpd
 4917 ?        00:06:13 httpd
 4918 ?        00:06:18 httpd
 9309 ?        00:00:13 spamd
27012 ?        00:00:00 spamd
 1356 ?        00:00:00 sshd
 1366 pts/0    00:00:00 bash
 1443 ?        00:00:00 tcpserver
 1445 ?        00:00:00 tcpserver
 1782 ?        00:00:00 qmail-send
 1783 ?        00:00:00 qmail-lspawn
 1784 ?        00:00:00 qmail-rspawn
 1785 ?        00:00:00 qmail-clean
 3712 pts/0    00:00:00 ps

and of qmail-showctl is

Code:

[root@mail control]# /var/qmail/bin/qmail-showctl
qmail home directory: /var/qmail.
user-ext delimiter: -.
paternalism (in decimal): 2.
silent concurrency limit: 120.
subdirectory split: 23.
user ids: 605, 602, 603, 0, 604, 606, 607, 608.
group ids: 602, 603.

badmailfrom: (Default.) Any MAIL FROM is allowed.

bouncefrom: Bounce user name is postmaster.

bouncehost: (Default.) Bounce host name is m**.net

concurrencylocal: (Default.) Local concurrency is 10.

concurrencyremote: (Default.) Remote concurrency is 20.

databytes: SMTP DATA limit is 10000000 bytes.

defaultdomain: Default domain name is m**.net.

defaulthost: (Default.) Default host name is m**.net

doublebouncehost: 2B recipient host: mail.m**.net

doublebounceto: 2B recipient user: doublebounce.

envnoathost: (Default.) Presumed domain name is m**.net

helohost: (Default.) SMTP client HELO host name is m**.net

idhost: (Default.) Message-ID host name is m**.net

localiphost: (Default.) Local IP address becomes m**.net

locals:

me: My name is m***.net

percenthack: (Default.) The percent hack is not allowed.

plusdomain: Plus domain name is net

qmqpservers: (Default.) No QMQP servers.

queuelifetime: Message lifetime in the queue is 6600 seconds.

rcpthosts:
SMTP clients may send messages to recipients at m***.org
SMTP clients may send messages to recipients at s***.net

morercpthosts: (Default.) No effect.

morercpthosts.cdb: (Default.) No effect.

smtpgreeting: (Default.) SMTP greeting: 220 m***.net

smtproutes: (Default.) No artificial SMTP routes.

timeoutconnect: (Default.) SMTP client connection timeout is 60 seconds.

timeoutremote: (Default.) SMTP client data timeout is 1200 seconds.

timeoutsmtpd: (Default.) SMTP server data timeout is 1200 seconds.

virtualdomains:
Virtual domain: m**.org:m**.org
Virtual domain: m**.net:m**.net

badmailto: I have no idea what this file does.

queuelifetime1: I have no idea what this file does.

locals.lock: I have no idea what this file does.

virtualdomains.lock: I have no idea what this file does.

rcpthosts.lock: I have no idea what this file does.

Trouble is that, if a message is sent to any non-existent user, the sender doesn't get any delivery failure message. Only time any user gets a mail delivery failure message is when the user sends a mail to a non-existing domain. No mail delivery failure is received by the sender inside or outside my domain when mail delivery fails at address of my domain.
I decreased queuelifetime to nearly 6000 seconds but that didn't help my cause.
Is there anything that needs to be configured separately for mail delivery failure messages to be sent?

rweaver · 03-09-2009, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snake eyes

Hello

Is there anything that needs to be configured separately for mail delivery failure messages to be sent?

If you accept the mail, it's the responsibility for your system to process it and deal with it. You shouldn't be accepting mail for users who don't exist (reject at mail time and no failure notice should be sent from your server, the sending server should handle it if you rejected it.) You shouldn't be sending delivery failure notices for users who don't exist that you accepted mail for, because that's called backscatter and you'd be sending tons of messages to people who didn't mail you in the first place and it will get you placed on many blacklists in a hurry. It's a major mail no-no. Lastly if this is a new mail setup that is going to be handling millions and millions of messages a day, I really would suggest you setup something other than qmail... especially if you're a novice mail admin (postfix, exim, or sendmail are all better choices these days.)

You can read up a bit more on it here.

http://spamlinks.net/prevent-secure-backscatter.htm

maxut · 03-11-2009, 04:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rweaver

Lastly if this is a new mail setup that is going to be handling millions and millions of messages a day, I really would suggest you setup something other than qmail... especially if you're a novice mail admin (postfix, exim, or sendmail are all better choices these days.)

Why not qmail?? It is fast and very secure. As i know any security hole has not been found yet. And remember most of ISPs prefer qmail including yahoo. will u suggest them to install postfix exim or sendmail too?? Because qmail is not ok for handling millions of messages lol

snake eyes says that he has redhat4. so he can install rpm based qmailtoaster (1) easily. it has all of necessary patches for a modern qmail. and spamdyke (2) offers smtp level spam filtering for qmail.

@snake eyes
queuelifetime file: it just defines how long a mail can stay in the queue. (man qmail-send)
please check ~vpopmail/domains/yourdomain.com/.qmail-default file. here is my file:
# cat ~vpopmail/domains/mydomain.com/.qmail-default
| /home/vpopmail/bin/vdelivermail '' bounce-no-mailbox

have u checked postmaster account for those mails? if a mail cannot be sent, it will be sent to poastmaster at last (~alias/.qmail-* files). u may also want to check check qmail logs.

(1) www.qmailtoaster.org
(2) www.spamdyke.org

snake eyes · 03-12-2009, 05:45 AM

Thanks maxut and rweaver.
I'm very new to Linux administration and even more new to Qmail. Among other things got one old Qmail server to manage with no documentation.
My manager here wants the want delivery failure message in case somebody misspells the email id. I've checked the postmaster account and no mails are sent there. vpopmail and qmailadmin are other two plugins installed. I tried looking around on their sites too, but there was no info.
Also is there any way to change the default login page? I page users see when they open mail site is in directory .../src/login.php
But there is no login.php page anywhere in server.
I tried searching the images embedded in that page but got same result. qmailadmin says to customise the page using config.php or install additional plugins. any other way?

maxut · 03-12-2009, 07:33 AM

if ~vpopmail/domains/domain.com/.qmail-default file is ok, those mails might be deleted by virus/spam filter. there are many softwares that can be used to scan mails. i know 3 of them qmail-scanner, simscan, and qsheff. they are generally used with clamav and spamassassin.
have a look in /etc/tcp.smtp or /etc/tcprules.d/tcp.smtp they are generally defined there. fist u must find what it is. and then check their configurations.

if u are looking for login.php on file system, run

Code:

find / -name "login.php"

. it will print where they are. generally they are located in subdirectories of /var/www or /usr/share

rweaver · 03-12-2009, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxut

Why not qmail??

Did I say under no condition should anyone ever run qmail? No. I said it's a bad choice for a novice admin and imo a bad choice for any new deployment that doesn't use dozens of machines to handle mail. Unless you missed it qmail hasn't been updated in years, yes it has had third party patches, but nothing has been done to the base system since 1998 and DJB will not allow anyone else to take it over and it's not open source although the source is available. Then lets consider the most consistently applied qmail patch "mess", qmailrocks, that hasn't been updated in several years either.

At no point did I claim it wasn't secure or fast. However, having worked for several ISPs who have done mail volume in the many millions of messages a day, I can say qmail is no longer necessary except in a few very special cases... which no new admin should ever encounter without being in a company big enough to have an entire it dept who can break the new person in on the ins and outs of qmail. The other mail servers have *all* made huge strides in speed and security.

The problem with qmail is that it's archaic... however, unlike when qmail was written it's not the only secure mta. Just like the other mta's it too has had security problems in the past (integer overflow on 64bit systems with a ton of memory was the last I remember). Also because of the way it used to handle bounces it was responsible for a lot of the spam on the internet (although after all the patches that is no longer true). It also doesn't meet the rfc 3464 standards for mail delivery. There is a long laundry list of issues with qmail. Not to mention qmail, because of the number of patches applied to a "modern qmail system" is a nightmare to debug complex problems under.

I work on peoples broken linux systems for a living, I work on qmail, postfix, exim, and sendmail on a regular basis. By far, the most complex of the four is qmail and by far the hardest to figure out complex issues on is qmail. It's not qmail itself so much as a base package, but all the additional patches you have to apply to get qmail to be a functional normal mail handler today. If djb audited qmail and incorporated all the new features people want in mail systems into it and kept it secure, I would whole heartedly recommend it, but he hasn't and he won't let anyone else take over in his place and in good conscious I can't recommend using a system held together with dozens of patches that isn't being updated as a "modern usable mail system".

As for yahoo... they have the it staff to dedicate to it, they could have just as easily wrote their own mail system.

maxut · 03-13-2009, 04:17 AM

Thanks for explaining the qmail and qmailrocks.

i only know "integer overflow on 64bit systems" as a security problem. But it must be defined so so huge memory in qmail run script. DJB says that nobody doesnt run qmail like that and he doesn't accept that problem as a security hole. as i know DJB still offer to $1000 reward if anyone find a real security hole in qmail.

please check qmailtoaster. it includes all of necessary patches (chkuser,domainkeys,SPF,remote-auth ..). really so easy to install on centos (redhat) and other rpm based distros. ( http://wiki.qmailtoaster.com/index.php/Main_Page ). I think it will be easier than installing exim postfix or sendmail as complete mail server. thats why i recommended toaster for novices.
Please let me know if u still think qmail (qmail-toaster) is not ok?

best regards