mailx won't mail

[Pita]

VL7-GOLD

I am unable to mail using mailx. Maillog says mail status=sent, yet
mailq shows mail is deferred and none ever arrives.

Code:

tail /var/log/maillog
Dec 13 11:15:34 smartbro sendmail[2899]: pBD3FYNb002899: to=maonut@operamail.com, ctladdr=haixmx (1000/1000), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=30235, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (pBD3FYXr002902 Message accepted for delivery)

sudo mailq
                /var/spool/mqueue (3 requests)
-----Q-ID----- --Size-- -----Q-Time----- ------------Sender/Recipient-----------
pBD3FYXr002902       21 Tue Dec 13 11:15 <haixmx@smartbro.net>
                 (host map: lookup (operamail.com): deferred)

Any suggestions welcome!

[retired1af]

Is this "in house" mail? Often times that particular error happens when it's unable to resolve the destination via DNS.

[hata_ph]

Do all mail cannot send out?

[nightflier]

It is very likely that your message gets lost along the way. Sending mail directly from your computer is/was a favorite technique of spammers, and there are lots of filters and rules which tend to raise flags when mail comes from an unknown, untrusted machine.

A possible alternative is sendEmail: http://caspian.dotconf.net/menu/Software/SendEmail/
Being a client, it uses your (hopefully) whitelisted ISP, or whichever mail service you subscribe to. I have had very good luck using it in scripts and in conjunction with a web hosting service.

[Pita]

Thanks all!

I guess it is not "in house" mail.

Yes all mail sent does not arrive.

Mail send with sendEmail does not arrive as well.

Needless to say there was no such problem with VL6

Further to mention:
I have Linux installed on 3 partitions. Two of them are XFCE4 based of which one is VL7. In both mailx does not send mail.
The partition which does send mail is base on Fluxbox. In this box mail sent by sendEmail does not arrive as well.

[bigpaws]

Sendmail is not setup for external mail, it maybe possible that local
delivery is possible.

You need to do two things:

Recompile in order to create a proper sendmail.cf and
know that port 25 is open.

Bigpaws

[Pita]

Sendmail is not setup for external mail, it maybe possible that local
delivery is possible.

You need to do two things:

Recompile in order to create a proper sendmail.cf and
know that port 25 is open.

Bigpaws

I beg to differ. Since I am using Linux way back in the last century I have
used mailx with sendmail for mailing e-mail and I am still using it in my
current working box. I never downloaded sendmail.cf and never used
mailx  "in house".

[hata_ph]

PITA,

Do you still cannot send mail using mailx and sendmail?

[bigpaws]

You can check /var/log/mail to see where the failure is as well.

Bigpaws

[Pita]

PITA,

Do you still cannot send mail using mailx and sendmail?

Yes, no mail will go out using mailx.

In /var/spool/mail there are the messages that mailx is trying to mail and can't.
This is in one of the mail.

Code:

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<mainit@operamail.com>

The address is correct. I tried other addresses, all get stuck.

mailq shows all the queued mail being deferred.

tail /var/log/maillog
Dec 24 14:55:06 smartbro sendmail[2760]: gethostbyaddr(192.168.x.x) failed: 1

[hata_ph]

is there any other errors in your /var/log/maillog?
strange me problem for me so far...

[bigpaws]

The error is lacking information. It appears that
sendmail can not find the address name probably
sue to DNS,

Have you tried testing your mail server response
to see that the port is open and accepting connections?

You could copy the mail configurations in the working
installation to the new one.

The sendmail package does not include the configuration
file sendmail.cf. Which is why I asked if you installed it.

In order to do more testing, please explain what packages
you installed (sendmail. mailx) for trying to use sendmail.

Bigpaws

[Pita]

The error is lacking information. It appears that
sendmail can not find the address name probably
due to DNS,

Have you tried testing your mail server response
to see that the port is open and accepting connections?

I can send mail using exmh

You could copy the mail configurations in the working
installation to the new one.

I had done that already.

The sendmail package does not include the configuration
file sendmail.cf. Which is why I asked if you installed it.

sendmail does include a sendmail.cf file which is installed in /etc/mail
I have never touched it.

In order to do more testing, please explain what packages
you installed (sendmail. mailx) for trying to use sendmail.

Bigpaws

mailx-12.4
sendmail-8.14.5-i586-1vl70

No hata there are no other error messages.

I removed now sendmail-8.14.5-i586-1vl70 and installed sendmail-8.14.4-i486-1 from my working box where I can send mail.
Mail is still stuck in VL7.

Edit:
I will mention that in my working box /etc/HOSTNAME has to be
"user.smartbro.net". Without the "user." mail will not work. Now in
VL7 if /etc/HOSTNAME is user.smartbro.net mail will be send from
user@user.smartbro.net which address naturally does not exist. So I remove the "user" in HOSTNAME and the address then is correct yet
mail is stuck.

[retired1af]

I think I see what the issue is, but need more info. Are you attempting to use each box as a SMTP server? Or are you using it just as a client and sending through your ISPs via SMTP?

If it's the former, I don't think you can have multiple SMTP servers on the same subnet. It just isn't done. You can use the original box as the server and then all other machines send mail through that box. But you just don't have multiple servers with different hostnames on the same subnet.

[Pita]

I think I see what the issue is, but need more info. Are you attempting to use each box as a SMTP server? Or are you using it just as a client and sending through your ISPs via SMTP?

If it's the former, I don't think you can have multiple SMTP servers on the same subnet. It just isn't done. You can use the original box as the server and then all other machines send mail through that box. But you just don't have multiple servers with different hostnames on the same subnet.

First of all the 2 linux boxes of which one is VL7 are on 2 different hard drives
and they do not communicate with each other. Either one is booted into separately.

I assume my mail is send  through my ISPs via SMTP.

Further, in my working box FLUXBOX where mailx is sending mail I get:

Code:

user[~]$ hostname
user
user[~]$ hostname -f
smartbro.net

if I give this in VL7 with XFCE4 I get

Code:

user[~]$ hostname
user.smartbro.net
user[~]$ hostname -f
hostname: Unknown host

In both boxes HOSTNAME has same content: "user.smartbro.net" yet
with VL7 mail is send from user@user.smartbro.net. Both boxes are slack based yet apparently handle mail settings differently.