I'm having a problem connecting to postfix, from anything but localhost.

I have a linksys router, and three hosts on our 192.168.1.0 network, one
Linux box (wynnserv) and tw MS/XP boxes. The goal is to have all boxes
send/recv mail thru wynnserv.

Symptoms
--------
I can send mail out from wynnserv's Ximian MUA, but cannot:
a) connect to wynnserv:25 from the XP boxes (outlook and telnet)
b) connect to wynnserv:25 from the internet (wynnserv:25 IS forwarded
by the linksys router), either by telnet to my static IP, or when other
MTA's try to connect from the internet.

Whenever an attempt to connect to postfix occurs, wether from one
of my XP boxes or from the internet, tcpdump shows a connect
(s flag) followed by a reject (r flag). Simultaneously, there is
NO logging going into /val/log/maillog.

Digging a little, reveals that the postfix master daemon is not running, i.e.

[root@wynnserv postfix]# ps aux | grep postfix
postfix 3336 0.0 0.2 3796 1324 ? S Dec13 0:00 nqmgr -l -n qmgr
postfix 14262 0.0 0.2 3732 1204 ? S 15:58 0:00 pickup -l -t fifo
[root@wynnserv postfix]#

Also, there does not seem to be any attempt to start the master daemon in
script /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S80postfix, although I am no expert reading shell, and
could be wrong about that.

Question
---------
Can somebody direct me to info on how to start the master daemon? I am primarily
a java/xml developer, rather than a linux system-admin/shell programmer, so
concrete examples rather than general instructions would be really welcome.

Thanks for your attention,

Bill.

How is your firewall/netfilter/iptables on the Linux box configured? Does it allow incoming traffic on port 25 at all? You will probably have to open up access on tcp/25 and also configure postfix to accept and relay messages from the other hosts on your local network.

I suggest you do not allow access from the Internet unless you really know what you're doing. Chances are you would either make your Linux box vulnerable to attack, or turn it in to a spam relay by mistake.

Håkan

Thanks Håkan, I checked all the items you suggested, but eventually found that postfix was only listening to localhost. I commented out the main.cf property

inet-interfaces=localhost,

and postfix came to life (the default is to listen to all interfaces). Your point about not accidentally relaying spam is duly noted.