Hello

I have been getting to get a new household (Mandrake 10.1) server going, with bits of luck here and there. Got apache2/mysql/php/geeklog going smoothly. A lot of the install RPMs would not work and had to recompile and config a bit. Now I have been fighting with postfix/imap/pop today and not getting as far with this. I need IMAP for squirrelmail (HTML mail access) and POP for other mail clients. I have this running on a mandrake 7 machine and am moving as many files as I can between the two machines and I feel stupid for not being able to get it going on the new machine. There is a huge difference between the 7 and 10, but still, linux is humbling.

I have webmin running as well. All the above were installed with the install RPMs (to which I am new to and not sure if I like much yet) Postfix appears to be running, ps waux | grep imap shows a few tasks running as does POP. The services control panel says load imap and pop as required and postfix launches at boot. I have my users added and there is an empty file in /var/spool/mail for each. There is a spamassassin folder located in the /etc/mail folder which I would like to tie into the mess. I am sending my mail via smtp.comcast.net as many isps do not accept mail from home made mail servers anymore.

My new install doesn't have a mail command anymore! WTF. I have nearly identical /etc/postfix/main.cf files between the two machines. For testing, I have been using my webmin client but cannot mail in or out. Outgoing mail is hung in a queue. Trying to connect on port 143 via squirrelmail gives a "Warning: fsockopen(): unable to connect to orgdotslash.com:143 in /www/mail/functions/imap_general.php on line 454" message. Trying to connect with a POP client doesn't do anything. (I am restarting postfix after changes are made)

I don't know if my postfix config is off, my imap config is off or my POP or all 3. I was thinking of pulling the stupid RPMs and installing from source code but the courer-imap ./configure script kept barfing and telling me how much it did not like me or redhat or it needed something else not installed on my machine. There appears to be imap and pop conf files in an /etc/pam.d/ and /etc/xinetd/ and have made minor changes by following advise with some online docs.

I am not sure how to procede or troubleshoot this. What error logs are informative? What simple mail tools can one use to troubleshoot this? What default settings need to be changed when installing from RPMs? Would posting some config files help any of you? Is anyone else having as fun of Saturday night as I am? Woopie.

I ran nmap to see if my ports were open and this is what I got below. 110 and 143 appear to be open. (is that too many open ports? how does a guy close the other ones?)

rob

[root@shuttle postfix]# nmap -sT 192.168.2.112

Starting nmap 3.55 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2005-02-19 21:13 CST
Interesting ports on shuttle (192.168.2.112):
(The 1645 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
80/tcp open http
110/tcp open pop3
111/tcp open rpcbind
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
143/tcp open imap
443/tcp open https
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
993/tcp open imaps
3128/tcp open squid-http
3306/tcp open mysql
6000/tcp open X11
10000/tcp open snet-sensor-mgmt

Hmmm. Still ain't working. I copied the /etc /main.cf and master.cf from my working mail server to the new one and still no go. Have been reading the docs and getting nowhere. my log file in /var/log/mail/errors tails with this;

Feb 19 22:22:36 shuttle postfix/smtpd[703]: fatal: open database /etc/postfix/aliases.db: No such file or directory
Feb 19 22:22:38 shuttle postfix/cleanup[777]: fatal: dict_open: unsupported dictionary type: pcre: Is the postfix-pcre package installed?
Feb 19 22:23:02 shuttle postfix/local[1075]: fatal: open database /etc/postfix/aliases.db: No such file or directory
Feb 19 22:23:37 shuttle postfix/smtpd[1118]: fatal: open database /etc/postfix/aliases.db: No such file or directory
Feb 19 22:23:40 shuttle postfix/cleanup[1123]: fatal: dict_open: unsupported dictionary type: pcre: Is the postfix-pcre package installed?
Feb 19 22:24:03 shuttle postfix/local[1152]: fatal: open database /etc/postfix/aliases.db: No such file or directory
Feb 19 22:24:38 shuttle postfix/smtpd[1176]: fatal: open database /etc/postfix/aliases.db: No such file or directory
Feb 19 22:24:41 shuttle postfix/cleanup[1177]: fatal: dict_open: unsupported dictionary type: pcre: Is the postfix-pcre package installed?
Feb 19 22:25:04 shuttle postfix/local[1198]: fatal: open database /etc/postfix/aliases.db: No such file or directory

yikes. I copied the aliases.db file from the working server over. but I am at a loss as to what the postfix-pcre is.

Does any of this ring a bell?

Couple of things

my /etc/aliases file needed a real user in place of root.

Error log was also looking for an /etc/postfix/aliases.db file which was not on new machine. I copied one from the other server and it seems to be alive.

copied /bin/mail from a working machine so I can test setup. Don't know why this is not one of the thousands of binaries installed by default.

looking at /var/log/mail/errors showed a postfix-pcre missing. Perl library something or other missing from install RPM. found an RPM for this pcre thingy and now I have installed.

I am at least able to send and receive mail by command line. Will work on imap/pop tomorrow.