Problems with mail on a fresh install

[Line Yoble]

Hello,

I have just completely reinstalled my server (Debian Lenny 32 bits).
After a lot of problems encountered and hours spent (the directadmin setup script is bull**** : there is always something missing anywhere in order to have one feature or another work - fortunately, I found answers on the Net).
Now, nearly all works (Apache, PHP, mySql, phpMyAdmin...).

But I have problems with mails. Until now, I have created only one domain with two mailboxes.

On my own computer, I use Outlook.

- When I try to send an email from Outlook to one of the mailboxes on my server from an address not hosted on the server (form another SMTP server), the mail is sent without error message but never receveid : if I try to read the mailbox with Outlook, I get nothing.

- When I send an email from directadmin ('resend the welcome email' from the admin details page, for example) to the same mailbox, the mail is sent and I can get it with Outlook.

- When I send an email from directadmin to a mailbox hosted elsewhere, the mail is sent and I can also get it with Outlook.

- When I send an email from Outlook to my server mailbox from the same address (from [email protected] to [email protected]) the message seems to be sent, but then I receive an error message saying "421 Unexpected failure, please try later".

So, it seems I have problems with dovecot (I don't receive messages coming from outside the server) and maybe with exim.

I have tried a ./build todovecot, and I got the following traces (with quota errors, despite my /home patition is mounted with usrquota and grpquota options) :

File already exists:    dovecot-2.0.9.tar.gz
MD5 Checksum on dovecot-2.0.9.tar.gz passed.
File already exists:    dovecot.boot
File already exists:    dovecot.boot.freebsd
File already exists:    dovecot.boot.debian
File already exists:    dovecot.conf
File already exists:    exim.conf.dovecot.patch
MD5 Checksum on exim.conf.dovecot.patch passed.
Shutting down exim:
Starting exim:
Stopping DirectAdmin: [ OK ]
Starting DirectAdmin: [ OK ]
inetd: no process killed
./build: line 6611: /etc/init.d/vm-pop3d: No such file or directory
chmod: cannot access `/etc/init.d/vm-pop3d': No such file or directory
Adding conversion command to the task.queue ...
Executing the task.queue cotents now, please be patient ...
Debug mode. Level 10

Converting to dovecot: start
quota command: /usr/sbin/setquota admin 0 0 0 0 /home
Error with quotas: setquota: Mountpoint (or device) /home not found or has no quota enabled.
setquota: Not all specified mountpoints are using quota.

user 1/1: admin
        xxxxxxx.fr
        admin main data
quota command: /usr/sbin/setquota admin 0 0 0 0 /home
Error with quotas: setquota: Mountpoint (or device) /home not found or has no quota enabled.
setquota: Not all specified mountpoints are using quota.

Converting to dovecot: stop
Restarting dovecot.
Shutting down dovecot:
Starting dovecot:
Restarting exim.
Shutting down exim:
Starting exim:
Done.

I don't know if the quota errors are fatal or if the build worked despite the messages.

I would be glad to know where to look in order to try to fix this boring problem and receive the mails sent to my mailbox from outside the server.

A lot of thanks for your help

Line

 

[SeLLeRoNe]

add ,usrquota,grpquota to the / (or /home or both) partition in /etc/fstab

should look like this:

LABEL=/                 /                       ext3    defaults,usrquota,grpquota      1 1

Then do mount -a (or reboot)

Regards

 

[Line Yoble]

Hello Sellerone,

Thanks for your answer, but I have written :
...despite my /home patition is mounted with usrquota and grpquota options

And, of course, I did a reboot after the modification of fstab.
So, additionally to my mail problems, I don't understand why I get the quota error during the build process.

Line

 

[SeLLeRoNe]

is the / mounted with quota aswell?

Should you please print this output?

cat /etc/fstab
and
df

Is the license set for your os?

Regards

 

[Line Yoble]

Just ask ! ;-)

fstab content :

# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
/dev/md1        /       ext4    errors=remount-ro,relatime      0       1
/dev/md2        /home   ext4    defaults,relatime,usrquota,grpquota     1       2
/dev/sda3       swap    swap    defaults        0       0
/dev/sdb3       swap    swap    defaults        0       0
proc            /proc   proc    defaults        0       0
sysfs           /sys    sysfs   defaults        0       0

df command :

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/md1               20G  2.4G   17G  13% /
tmpfs                 2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /lib/init/rw
udev                   10M  2.7M  7.4M  27% /dev
tmpfs                 2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /dev/shm
/dev/md2              665G   16G  615G   3% /home

What do you exactly mean with your last question ?
Initially my licence was for Debian 3.1 (and as it is on my directadmin site account screen). My first and working install was on Debian 4.0. And I have now reinstalled on Debian 5.
But as I run the setup script choosing all options manually (I want PHP 5 as cgi), one of the script questions tells me to confirm if the system is Debian 5, and several messages I was able to read during the setup process contained the string 'Lenny', which seems to be fine for me.

Line

 

[SeLLeRoNe]

Ok, try add quota to / mount aswell, and, check on directamdin client page if is set for debian 5.

Just for be sure

Sorry for my english, not main tounge

 

[Line Yoble]

Sellerone,

I wait and maybe I'll follow your advices later.
But until now I have solved one problem (I can now send a message from Outlook to a mailbox on my web server from the same address, from [email protected] to [email protected]).
But as previously, I don't know where this mail goes : when I send an email to this address from outside the server, I don't receive it (but it works fine when the message sent from inside the server).

[EDIT]
Was not true, the mail sent to my mailbox returned an error message "421 Unexpected failure, please try again later".

Thanks.

Line

 

[zEitEr]

It's Exim that accepts and delivers messages from other MTAs to your mail box. Dovecot is working ok, as you can check your mailbox with Outlook.

To understand what exactly is wrong with your exim start with analyzing exim's logs: mainlog and rejectlog. Just send an email from remote SMTP to your box and check it in logs.

I cannot connect on it from outside the server

How did you do that? Did you telnet on 25 or 587 port? Or what?

To be sure, that's not dovecot's issue, check manually in shell /home/<username>/imap/ directory.

 

[Line Yoble]

Zeiter,

Thanks for your answer.

It seems my problems are fixed now :
As I was desperate, I (custom)rebuild all and I restored my saved copy of exim.conf (I didn't think to do this before) from my previous working installation with Debian 4.
All emails are now sent and received well.
As I didn't do this separately, I can't say if the problem was due to a bad compiled/installed component or to a buggy exim.conf file.
But the good and more important news for me is that mail is now functional.

Kind regards.

Line

 

[nobaloney]

I'm glad to see you've got your installation working.

For the future, it would be much more helpful if instead of writing:

the directadmin setup script is bull****

you'd write the specific problem or problems you're having.

Jeff

 

[mr.applesauce]

Yeah its a disgusting mess. Needs to be totally re-written.

 

[Line Yoble]

Hello Jeff,

I have spent 3 days, installing and reinstalling my server with this f***ing directadmin setup script always letting me on the side of the road because something was missing in order to have such or such feature working fine (even if the script nearly always worked till its normal end).
I have spent a lot of hours searching on the web each solution. So, I was "a little" angry against this script and my opinion hasn't change. And, apart from looking in the existing forum threads, I didn't have more time to spend on the forum for each of these too numerous problems in order to ask for a solution I was not sure to get rapidly (I was in a hurry, because several users were waiting for their working web app).

Now, nearly all features I need are working.
But about one hour ago, I discovered Roundcube was not installed. Why ? I don't now. This problem is fixed, now.

I'm sorry if my opinion about your script is bad and hurts you, but it is due to this experience.
I remember that when I installed directadmin for the first time, about two years ago on a Debian Etch, all worked fine and, despite I was a novice, I got a basic working system in less than 3 hours, directadmin included.

Now, on my Debian Lenny, I needed 3 days for the same results, only because your script was not working as expected. That's why I'm disappointed.
And this doesn't change my opinion about your panel I find easy to use and efficient.

 

[SeLLeRoNe]

just a little note.

Sometimes i had problem on installation aswell, but, if you contact da support, they use to install for you when you have strange problems with installation.

Regards

 

[DirectAdmin Support]

Hello,

To follow with SeLLeRoNe's last comment, if you do run into install issues, please let us know and we can help. We've probably seen most issues before, so don't hesitate to send us an email. If it's not sorted out within a few emails, we usually ask for root login and we try to fix it for you from there.

John