Topic: Mail sorting revisted.

[John Crisp]

Having spent most of the day reading and pulling my hair out, my eyes are now square and everything is slightly fuzz....I am desperately in need of a beer and some sleep

Problem - as ever - sorting mail. I am trying to replace a NT 4 server c/w exchange (for only 5 or 6 users -a bit of overkill if ever I saw it).

I have E V5.0.3 installed. Local domain is localnet. Server is esmith.localnet  

The mail provider is a UK company called Netbenefit (not my choice) and all mail gets mapped to a single POP3 box.

The 'internet' domain is impamark.co.uk so mail gets to user@impamark.co.uk

Usual saga with mail all ending in the admin mail box.

I have dabbled with linux for a few years and have installed a few Esmiths before without any great hardship. Usually just as servers, but the last one runs multi pop quite happily.

I would be grateful if someone could examine the following and explain in words of one syllable why the multidrop sorting can't match anne@impamark.co.cuk (which it detects) with a user called anne and how to fix same problem. I have read all I can on the BB, tried Stephens excellent add-ons - user manager etc. and all to no avail.

I have set the email retrieval with originally the default sort, and then tried to specify with the line :

X-Mailmap-To:

Results as per last line below.

Any ideas ? Cos I'm right out of them. Mail seems to fly into the admin box with a singlemindedness that defies the imagination.

Have I got to get in and hack the .procmailrc per user ? I have one user with this using procmail rules as per Stephens add on but it fails too. No idea why.


All comments gratefully appreciated.

John Crisp



Return-Path:
Delivered-To: postmaster@esmith.localnet
Received: (qmail 7499 invoked by alias); 10 Feb 2002 22:15:11 -0000
Delivered-To: alias-localdelivery-postmaster@localnet
Received: (qmail 7496 invoked by uid ; 10 Feb 2002 22:15:11 -0000
Received: from localhost (127.0.0.1)
   by localhost with SMTP id smtpdQiIjpZ; Sun, 10 Feb 2002 17:15:05 EST
Received: from mailhost.impamark.co.uk
   by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4)
   for postmaster@localnet (multi-drop); Sun, 10 Feb 2002 22:15:05 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from coumxnb02.netbenefit.co.uk ([212.53.64.125])
   by mailhost.netbenefit.co.uk with esmtp (NetBenefit 1.5)
   id 16a2Cj-0005GQ-00
   for mbox11874a@pop.netbenefit.co.uk; Sun, 10 Feb 2002 22:12:13 +0000
Received: from [64.4.21.190] (helo=hotmail.com)
   by coumxnb02.netbenefit.co.uk with esmtp (NetBenefit 1.7)
   id 16a2Cj-0000JB-00 ; Sun, 10 Feb 2002 22:12:13 +0000
Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC;
    Sun, 10 Feb 2002 14:12:12 -0800
Received: from 158.152.91.145 by lw14fd.law14.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP;
   Sun, 10 Feb 2002 22:12:12 GMT
X-Originating-IP: [158.152.91.145]
From: "John Crisp"
To: anne@impamark.co.uk
Cc: lynne@impamark.co.uk
Bcc:
Subject: Test X-MAildrop
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 22:12:12 +0000
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
Message-ID:
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 10 Feb 2002 22:12:12.0801 (UTC) FILETIME=[FD93FF10:01C1B27F]
X-Mailmap-To: anne@impamark.co.uk
X-Fetchmail-Warning: recipient address anne@impamark.co.uk didn't match any local name

Also get :
X-Mailmap-To: anne@impamark.co.uk
X-Fetchmail-Warning: no recipient addresses matched declared local names

[stephen noble]

> why the multidrop
> sorting can't match anne@impamark.co.cuk (which it detects)
> with a user called anne

i don't think the mx is set up correctly, for you
i use zonedit.com to fwd to my pop3 box and it sorts users corectly
lists, spam etc come to me via admin



> To: anne@impamark.co.uk
> X-Mailmap-To: anne@impamark.co.uk
> X-Fetchmail-Warning: no recipient addresses matched declared
> local names

my procmail addon searches for Delivered To:
i want to add a custom header match, then you could match on
To: or X-Mailmap-To:

for why fetchmail didn't match anne, i'm not sure what it uses

so yes your mail won't sort, untill i add the extra header
or you hack the feature in

regards
stephen noble
dungog.net/sme

[John Crisp]

Thanks for you kind & prompt response.

>> why the multidrop
>> sorting can't match anne@impamark.co.cuk (which it detects)
>> with a user called anne

>i don't think the mx is set up correctly, for you
>i use zonedit.com to fwd to my pop3 box and it sorts users corectly
>lists, spam etc come to me via admin

mx .... ? I know it's to do with mail / DNS. Is this there side or mine ? How do you change it ?

Would it make any difference if I renamed the local network - say each machine was user.impamark.co.uk  ?



>> To: anne@impamark.co.uk
>> X-Mailmap-To: anne@impamark.co.uk
>> X-Fetchmail-Warning: no recipient addresses matched declared
>> local names

>my procmail addon searches for Delivered To:
>i want to add a custom header match, then you could match on
>To: or X-Mailmap-To:

>for why fetchmail didn't match anne, i'm not sure what it uses

>so yes your mail won't sort, untill i add the extra header
>or you hack the feature in


How & where ? procmailrc in the users directory ?

Any assistance on this would be appreciated. I could change provider, but it's not my call.

Funnily enough (not), I was dialing up via my own provider Demon in the UK as the Netbenefit account does not provide dial in services - you have to use another provider. The Demon mail server delivers by SMTP or you can collect by POP3. Anyway, the E-smith promptly bounced all my own personal mail (which was not what I intended !) when the Demon mail server tried to deliver, as it recognised the IP, saw a waiting connection and pushed the mail down. Such is life !

Could this be somethig to do with it - i.e. you can use any old dialup provider to collect your mail ?

B. Rgds
John

[John Crisp]

For those who may want to know, I got the thing sorted as follows.

Basically I had setup the local domain as local.net and this is where it goes pear shaped.

If I use the correct external domain e.g impamark.co.uk then everything works just fine - mail is sorted correctly.

So the server becomes server_name.impamark.co.uk and each machine obviously is workstation@impamark.co.uk

The trouble with this is that I wanted the users to be able to access their online website, so I set the one in 'hosts and addresses' to the IP of the external server and everything was hunky dory.

I think if you want to use a different domain locally, e.g. local.net then you could setup a virtual domain and point the www address to the external site again. I think that the mail will then be collected and recognised under this domain.

I know that during the setup it asks you to give the server a 'real' domain, but you don't necessarily realise the importance of such a thing......I had wanted to use a different domain locally to help me distinguish things a bit. I think a bit more in the help section to explain this would be good.

Still living & learning !

B. Rgds
John