Topic: email message won't arrive to recepient

[kryptos]

Hello all,

Just need a little help here. I have commence an affa backup using this method.

http://wiki.contribs.org/Moving_SME_to_new_Hardware

But after transferring to new hardware I wasn't able to deliver email. This is the message that I have encountered on the logs.

74  10238.60  Sorry, I wasn't able to establish an SMTP connection. (#4.4.1)/

Before the transfer I have initiated the yum upgrade on the old server. Any ideas what could be the cause of the problem?

Regards,
Rocel

[kryptos]

More info on my error. I can send, receive locally and also able to receive emails from the outside.But no able to send email outside of the server. Any one could help me find out what really is the problem where to check the logs? really appreciate your help.

[mmccarn]

Is the new hardware at the same location as the old hardware?

Is there any chance your ISP is blocking outbound traffic on port 25?

Is there a firewall in front of your SME that is blocking SMTP traffic by mac address (or IP address if your new hardware has a different IP from your old one)?

Are you relaying email through an outside mail host, or delivering it directly?

If you are delivering email directly, what happens if you open a shell prompt on your new SME and type telnet gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com 25?
(you should get a message saying something like 220 mx.google.com ESMTP l33si1856562qck.9  Also, you can disconnect by typing quit and pressing <Enter>).

What happens if you do the same thing from the old SME?

(If you are delivering outbound email through an SMTP relay, substitute the name or IP address of the relay for "gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com" in the above command)

If the telnet command looks like it's connecting OK, check your log files - outbound email connections are handled by qmail, so look at /var/log/qmail/current

[kryptos]

Problem solved. It turn out our ISP blocked port 25 temporarily without informing us... They monitor our line and said have lot of spam activity coming from us. And it was coincidentally that time I have migrated to new hardware so I have mixed suspicions what could have caused that problem.  Anyway thanks!

[Fumetto]

...They monitor our line and said have lot of spam activity coming from us...

This is not good... if you can investigate on it...

[mrkiwi]

More info on my error. I can send, receive locally and also able to receive emails from the outside.But no able to send email outside of the server. Any one could help me find out what really is the problem where to check the logs? really appreciate your help.

Anytime email cant get out, or in, or you just dont know what is going on here, start with the most basic tools - binary troubleshooting, your whiteboard, and the command line.

I would have ignored the hardware change, qmail, smeserver etc and gone straight to this;

#telnet [my isp's SMTP server] 25

This would tell you immediately that;

If it worked (ie you got something like this;

Code: [Select]

Trying 210.54.141.2...
Connected to smtp.xtra.co.nz.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mta03.xtra.co.nz ESMTP server ready Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:43:24 +1300)
then your network is good, your connection is working, you're not being port-25 blocked, your provider is listening.

If it didn't work (ie timeout or cannot resolve - smeserver or qmail is not likely the cause of the problem - look closer to your network or network config (like DNS) for clues.

At this point you've halved the problem space

The best techs are the ones who know how to see if the problem exists on their left or right.

MrKiwi