What's wrong with Exim?

B

Brian S

Verified User
Joined
Oct 27, 2003
Messages
57
I've had intermittent problems with mail on my DA server. Every so often, webmail would stop working. I couldn't login or send email. Sometimes just restarting da-popb4smtp and exim would get it working. Other times, I was forced to restart the entire server to get mail working again.

I just got a call from a client on this same server was has been unable to check his mail from Outlook for over a day. Strange, because I just checked webmail on another domain on the same server and it was working fine. So I login to his webmail to test things, and get an SMTP error in NeoMail when trying to send. So I restart da-popb4smtp and exim and all is well again.

Does anyone have any clue what's going on? I remember finding an earlier thread about mail hanging on the server (and their only solution was also to restart the server), but no one had a solution. Has anyone else encountered this behavior?

Thanks,

Brian
 
The Imap daemon, squirrelmail, exim, and the pop daemon are all separate programs and none of them should interfere with the other.

So I don't know where to start.

Except to ask you to be more specific about error messages; that might help us help you.

Jeff
 
There is no error message. The services are still reported as operating normally. But mail can't be delivered, nor received for any account. The message I got when I sent a test message was:

Code: 
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 550

Sometimes, restarting da-popb4smtp gets things working again. Other times, I have to restart the entire server to get email working again. I know I am not the only one who has had this problem. I know there was at least another member here who reported the exact same behavior.

Thanks,

Brian
 
I have the "same" problems here

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 550 authentication required

And i can not fix this :(
 
@BrianS:
Code: 
Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 550
Click to expand...
That's odd. Is there no more text after "550"? Usually a 550 error is followed by a brief explanation of the nature of the error (like "Authentication required" in the example of hostweb).

Without any additional information it isn't even certain which command triggered the 550 error. Usually it is a response to a RCPT TO: command but without additional information it's anyones guess to which command it replied with 550 in this case. It could even be the HELO command...

Maybe next time your server starts acting up again, before restarting, you could attempt a smtp transfer manually so that you can see exactly where the error occurs.
 
@hostweb:

If you add your own IP address to /etc/virtual/pophosts
do you still get the same error?
 
I'm still having problems with mail service going down. The problem is now more sporadic and random.

It used to be that I couldn't login to SquirrelMail (I'd login and then nothing would load) and incoming mail would get rejected. Now, the other day, a client emailed and said they could not get any messages to load in SM. I verified that, but was then able to get in through UebiMail and read their messages. Plus, it seems he was still receiving messages. A reboot fixed the problem.

Today, he contacts me again, saying that he can't get into either SM or UM. I verify this again and, this time, simply restarting da-popb4smtp does the trick.

It sure would be nice to have some insight on this. Can it really be that only me and like two other people are having this problem?

Thanks,

Brian
 
SpamAssassin:
SpamAssassin version 3.0.4
running on Perl version 5.8.0
Click to expand...
Exim:
Exim version 4.50 #1 built 01-Apr-2005 13:03:02
Click to expand...
da-popb4smtp controls POP3, right? Don't know how to figure out the version of this.

Thanks,

Brian
 
you are running very old versions (some with security vulnerabilities) i suggest upgrading.

exim 4.53
spam assasin 3.1.1

vmpop3d is the pop daemon. But it hasn't had a new version in a long time so i bet it's the latest.


if you can to test run from ssh "telnet localhost 110" that will connect you to your pop3 server and the version will be displayed upon connecting.
 
popb4smtp has nothing to do with displaying messages in squirrelmail.

You should probably look at the main httpd error log while attempting to recreate the error.

Jeff
 
jlasman said:
popb4smtp has nothing to do with displaying messages in squirrelmail.

You should probably look at the main httpd error log while attempting to recreate the error.

Jeff
Click to expand...
The problem is not with SM, it is with mail delivery (as referenced by the IMAP responses passed back through SM). When this problem is occurring, it is with sending and/or receiving, either for a single account, or the entire server. Restarting any mail services sometimes helps, and sometime restarting the server is the ONLY thing that will get mail working again.

Thanks,

Brian
 
maybe the mail file is locked

Not sure if this is your problem but we have had a sporadic problem with clients not being able to retrieve mail via webmail or outlook.

The cause was a .lock file in their spool folder - so if the email was [email protected] inside /var/spool/virtual/somedomain.com/ there would be a file bob.lock as well as their mal file bob. Deleting the file bob.lock would immediately restore access to their mail on both webmail and outlook. This was on fedora 2.

It often happened to clients when their email client timed out because they were on dial up and their internet connection failed while pulling down mail so I suspect it has something to do with vm-pop3d locking the mail file and leaving it locked.

I haven't worked on a proper fix to this problem as it happens quite sporadically so manually deleting the lock file when a client has this problem works for us currently.
 
I've had the lock problem once in a blue moon. This problem would actually affect the ability to receive mail sometimes, not just retrieve it. For example, I would send a test message to an account and receive a returned mail message with an error message about the address being unroutable or something.

Restarting da-popb4smtp and exim sometimes would help. Other times, I would have to restart the entire server to get mail back. Once its back, mail works fine. :confused:

Brian
 
An unrouteable address has nothing to do with locks.

An unrouteable address occuring occsionally can occur when you only have one real DNS server.

Jeff
 
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