[clue] Email server issues

[Jim Ockers]

Hi,

What do the mail logs say (usually /var/log/maillog) about what's 
happening to messages?  Is there mail in the mail queue?  Maybe the 
process that is supposed to process queued mail stopped for some reason, 
and mail is piling up in the queue and not being delivered.  Is the 
system load average (as shown by "uptime" really high?  Sometimes mail 
won't be de-queued and processed if the server load averages are too high.

Maybe try to send a message from the local system to make sure that mail 
can be delivered locally:

1. Create an email text file (say, email.txt) that contains the To 
e-mail address that apparently doesn't work.

From: <you at your.email>
To: <recipient at address>
Subject: test

Test message to be delivered locally

2. Try to send the mail locally:

$ cat email.txt | sendmail -fyou at your.email recipient at address

3. Observe if the message is delivered or not by checking mail via 
IMAP.  Also look in /var/log/maillog to see what apparently happened to 
the message.  Maybe look in /var/spool/mqueue if that's the mail queue 
directory.

Good luck,
Jim

--
Jim Ockers, P.E., P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
Contact info: http://www.ockers.net/

On 3/30/13 12:29 PM, Yaverot wrote:
> My friend has two of his email servers stop working recently. About a week ago.
> (by working, I mean receiving email, AFAIK IMAP still works for reading delivered mail)
>
> Port 25 is still open on them according to grc.com's Shields Up.
> MX records in DNS are still valid.
>
> Does anyone have a good list of diagnosis steps? Something that might then allow us to google an answer.
>
> They were working before.
> Webpage links gladly accepted as answers.
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