Sendmail not functioning correctly.

[nostromo]

Hello,

It appears that no email is being sent from/through my VPS, running DirectAdmin.

I run a test from command line:

echo 'this is a test'| mail -s test_email [email protected]

No email arrived at the destination address.

I checked exim log and the following is present. I do not fully understand it so would appreciate if someone could help me out and perhaps let me know what I can do to fix.

2012-06-05 23:30:32 cwd=/root 1 args: sendmail
2012-06-05 23:32:44 exim 4.77 daemon started: pid=22940, -q15m, listening for SMTP on port 25 (IPv6 and IPv4) port 587 (IPv6 and IPv4) and for SMTPS on port 465 (IPv6 and IPv4)
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kv-0005zj-W9 <= [email protected] U=root P=local S=375 T="test_email" from <[email protected]> fo r [email protected]
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kv-0005zj-W9 ** [email protected]
F=<[email protected]> R=virtual_aliases:
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kw-0005zm-45 <= <> R=1Sc2Kv-0005zj-W9 U=mail P=local S=1176 T="Mail delivery failed: returning messag e to sender" from <> for [email protected]
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kv-0005zj-W9 Completed
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kw-0005zm-45 User 0 set for local_delivery transport is on the never_users list
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kw-0005zm-45 == [email protected] R=localuser T=local_delivery defer (-29): User 0 set for local_de livery transport is on the never_users list
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kw-0005zm-45 ** [email protected]: retry timeout exceeded
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kw-0005zm-45 [email protected]: error ignored
2012-06-05 23:34:50 1Sc2Kw-0005zm-45 Completed

No mail is being sent from php scripts or contact forms etc. They simply don't arrive to where they should be going.

I used custombuild to update exim to see if it would help and it did not.

Any help much appreciated.

 

[Richard G]

Well... this is your problem:

User 0 set for local_de livery transport is on the never_users list

Because you send the mail via commandline as root, the mail is not delivered, but it is present on your system.

There are a couple of options.
1.) Remove root from the never user list in the Exim configuration (I wouldn't do that)
2.) Make an alias for root in /etc/aliases and restart Exim.
After that, check that the server's HOSTname is also present in /etc/virtual as a directory like for example the main domain. If it's not, create it.
It woud be wise to also put an a record for your hostname in your dns.

That should fix the problems for you.
Be aware, it could be you will suddenly get loads of mail to you which were send in the past via root.