Topic: Help - Outgoing mail is not working in SME 7.2

[VatanM]

HHEEELLLLPPPPPP
I am a novice sysadmin and am helping my son's schol with their computer network and security.  I upgraded their SME Server from 6.1 to 7.2.  They are using Outlook to pop their emails from their individual ISP.  I can send test emails to them, but when they reply or respond to me, I never get their emails.  In the "Mail log ..." tab, under the last option, "Summary of mail queue and status", I see that there are 150+ messages in the queue and 15+ not preprocessed messages.


========================Sample below ====================
Mail Log File Analysis
Report generated: Sat 25 Aug 2007 10:03:20 AM EDT
messages in queue: 160
messages in queue but not yet preprocessed: 18
End of Report
   
=========================================================

I also have tried to delegate their ISP mail server in the "Delegate mail servers" and put the ISP's IP, it did not help.
I also tried to add their ISP mail server in the "SMTP Server" section with authentication disabled.

Please help.

[mmccarn]

Is there anything useful in /var/log/qmail/current?

If you use 'putty' to connect to your server (or if you login on the physical console connected to the server) and type telnet maila.microsoft.com smtp do you get 220 mail04.microsoft.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service ready at Sat, 25 Aug 2007 07:49:15 -0700 (or something like it)? (If not, your ISP may be blocking traffic on port 25).

(Note: type "quit" and press <Enter> to close the connection.  You may not see what you're typing - don't worry, just type it...)

What happens if you replace 'maila.microsoft.com' with your ISP's mail server in the command above?  You should get some sort of smtp id string. 

If you have created the actual domain name on the SME server, but are hoping to have the email relayed off-site, you may have a problem - the SME will "swallow" the email, assuming it's destined for itself, and will never send it off-site.  Try sending a test message to another domain.

If none of these ideas prove useful you are likely to have some sort of general email configuration problem or upgrade problem.  To proceed you would need to tell us:

- exactly how you upgraded from 6.1 to 7.2
- if you did an in-place upgrade, which instructions (or what procedure) did you follow? 
- What add-ons had been installed on the 6.1 server?  were they removed before the upgrade, or not?
- How was the 6.1 server configured?
- How is the 7.2 server configured?

(It occurs to me that 7.2 by default has the 'smtp proxy' enabled - you might try disabling it under Security::Proxy settings in server-manager).

Good luck; keep us posted!

[CharlieBrady]

I also have tried to delegate their ISP mail server in the "Delegate mail servers" and put the ISP's IP, it did not help.

I suggest you re-read the manual carefully. The "Delegate mail servers"  setting is for an internal mail server which handles (just) your domain, not for relaying outbound mail.

I also tried to add their ISP mail server in the "SMTP Server" section with authentication disabled.

That should work, as long as the ISP mail server is reachable, and will accept and relay mail. The qmail/current log file records exactly what happens when qmail attempts to send outbound mail.

[VatanM]

I noticed something weird (to me at least).
  The queue seems to be increasing.  Here's the latest snippet of queue status.

Mail Log File Analysis
Report generated: Sun 26 Aug 2007 09:37:38 AM EDT
messages in queue: 165
messages in queue but not yet preprocessed: 23
End of Report


CharlieBrady,
   I tried anything, as I hit a wall.

mmccarn,
    The upgrade from 6.1 to 7.2 was more of a reinstall.  I downloaded the ISO from URL and reinstalled it.
    The person who was managing the SME left and we have no information on that was added or changed.
    The SME 7.2 is configured to be a firewall and (now) a mail server.
    The SME server has its own domain.  So I guess this is the mail server also, not just relaying to another server.

*******************************************************************************
    I am also seeing this message few times in the logs, especially when I try to send emails to tampabay.rr.com   id's.
     2007-08-24 19:29:47.063289500 new msg 23829
2007-08-24 19:29:47.063360500 info msg 23829: bytes 1740 from <root@sherlock.countryside> qp 19583 uid 400
2007-08-24 19:29:47.081645500 starting delivery 138: msg 23443 to local root@countryside1.sherlock.countryside
2007-08-24 19:29:47.081762500 status: local 2/10 remote 20/20
2007-08-24 19:29:47.081902500 delivery 137: success: did_0+1+1/qp_19735/
2007-08-24 19:29:47.082031500 status: local 1/10 remote 20/20
2007-08-24 19:29:47.082146500 delivery 47: success: 65.54.244.136_accepted_message./Remote_host_said:_250_mail_from_IP_66.14.106.71_soft_failed_sender_ID_check._Please_ensure_this_IP_is_authorized_to_send_mail_on_behalf_of_[tampabay.rr.com]/


******************************************************************************
Here's a snippet from the qmail/current log:
           2007-08-24 19:29:36.747504500 status: local 0/10 remote 0/20
2007-08-24 19:29:36.975772500 new msg 18897
2007-08-24 19:29:36.984397500 info msg 18897: bytes 6778 from <anonymous@sherlock.countryside> qp 8887 uid 0
2007-08-24 19:29:37.150206500 new msg 16333
2007-08-24 19:29:37.156897500 info msg 16333: bytes 1080 from <root@sherlock.countryside> qp 20122 uid 0
2007-08-24 19:29:37.236806500 starting delivery 1: msg 18897 to local alias-localdelivery-root@sherlock.countryside
2007-08-24 19:29:37.236949500 status: local 1/10 remote 0/20
2007-08-24 19:29:37.313380500 new msg 16523
2007-08-24 19:29:37.349855500 info msg 16523: bytes 5238 from <anonymous@sherlock.countryside> qp 20123 uid 0
2007-08-24 19:29:37.636029500 new msg 17651
2007-08-24 19:29:37.664428500 info msg 17651: bytes 1721 from <anonymous@sherlock.countryside> qp 5763 uid 0
2007-08-24 19:29:37.932200500 starting delivery 2: msg 16333 to local alias-localdelivery-admin@sherlock.countryside
2007-08-24 19:29:37.932302500 status: local 2/10 remote 0/20
2007-08-24 19:29:38.065532500 new msg 18890
2007-08-24 19:29:38.068233500 info msg 18890: bytes 6778 from <anonymous@sherlock.countryside> qp 9538 uid 0
2007-08-24 19:29:38.271545500 delivery 1: success: forward:_qp_19308/did_0+0+1/
2007-08-24 19:29:38.271729500 status: local 1/10 remote 0/20

[mmccarn]

The upgrade from 6.1 to 7.2 was more of a reinstall

Either it was an install or it was an upgrade - 'more of a reinstall' doesn't help us much...  In a fresh install, SME will erase all data, format every hard disk in your computer, then install and configure itself.  Any other behavior indicates an 'upgrade', and we need to make sure none of your problems are due to old contribs or customizations that may not be supported on the new version.

65.54.244.136_accepted_message./Remote_host_said:_250_mail_from_IP_66.14.106.71_soft_failed_sender_ID_check._Please_ensure_this_IP_is_authorized_to_send_mail_on_behalf_of_[tampabay.rr.com]

This message is telling you that Hotmail (65.54.244.136 resolves to mx1.hotmail.com) thinks your host (66.14.106.71) is NOT listed as an authorized email origination address for the domain 'tampabay.rr.com'.

The error from hotmail seems to indicate that your SME is *trying* to deliver emails, but is not doing so.  This points to other email configuration issues.

Setting up a functioning email server is NOT a trivial task, and requires that you correctly setup and interconnect several different pieces:

• You must register your own domain name with an Internet registrar.  This is a required.  It is not possible to create your own domain name, nor is it possible to use your ISP's domain name.
• You have to have a DNS server provider hosting your domain name information (the registrar tells people to come here for answers about your domain)
• You have to configure your DNS servers to send email to your SME server
• If you want to send email out from your SME server you need to have an IP address that will be allowed to connect and deliver email to the mail servers belonging to the people you want to send email to.  This generally means a fixed (not dynamic) IP address from an ISP that practices good email hygiene so that their IP ranges don't end up listed on all the block lists on the 'net.
• If you don't have a fixed, well-respected IP address you need to configure your mail server to deliver outbound email to your ISP's designated SMTP server.  This may or may not require 'authentication'.
• Your email client software (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc) must be configured correctly

[VatanM]

Hoooraaaahhh, I think the issue seems to be fixed.  I will be testing more

mmccarn, thansk for the help.  After going thro the steps and verifying them in SME.  I was trying to install qmhandle (it failed install a "RequireForce flas was not set).  But doing some more digging, I found that user the Services URL there is a mail enable option.  The option was suppsed to restart the qmaild and qpsmtpd and sqsmtpd.  But I manually restarted all the 3.  But when I ran config show qmail, it showed as disabled.  So restarted the qmail from web page. The queue seems to be empty.

But need to open a Bugizzla ticket as the check box in the URL is still unchecked and the page never came back to anythign when I tried to start it.