[SOLVED] sendmail receiving problems

kaplan71 · 04-18-2011, 06:22 PM

Hi there --

I am running an ESMTP sendmail 8.13.8/8.13.8 server on a CentOS 64-bit distribution. The server is able to send out messages, but is unable to receive them. I have confirmed this by trying to send messages to various accounts on the server and monitoring the /var/log/maillog file with the tail -f command. Additionally, I have checked the time stamp of several /var/spool/mail/<userid> files, and none have today's date.

I checked the /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file, and focused my attention on one of the DAEMON_OPTIONS settings. Prior to making any changes, I made backup copies of the sendmail.cf and sendmail.mc files in the /etc/mail directory. The one in question is shown below:

Code:

dnl # The following causes sendmail to only listen on the IPv4 loopback address
dnl # 127.0.0.1 and not on any other network devices. Remove the loopback
dnl # address restriction to accept email from the internet or intranet.
dnl #
dnl # DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA')dnl

I believe that is the cause of the issue, and I changed the line question to read as it is shown. The original format of the DAEMON_OPTIONS line is the following:

Code:

DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA')dnl

After I made the change, I ran the following command to have the changes go into effect:

Code:

m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf

The text of the file scrolled down the screen, and ended with a command prompt. I then ran the service sendmail restart command. The daemon stopped and restarted without issue.

I tried sending an e-mail from an external account to the server, but there was no indication the message got through. Is there something wrong with my syntax, or is there an additional step that needs to be done?

Thanks.

technodweeb · 04-18-2011, 06:50 PM

I am not proficient with sendmail. However you may find this approach useful. Try using telnet 1.2.3.4 25 using your server IP address. This will give you more feedback as to what is happening and do so immediately. I believe it should show a 220 response code. This would just be a starting point to verify a smtp connection can be made. Hope this is some help for you.

kaplan71 · 04-19-2011, 01:28 PM

It turns out the syntax is correct, there was simply a delay on the mail server gateway at our site that caused the e-mails to take longer than expected to get through.