Exim (Debian 3.0 r4) SMTP Sending

darraghrogan

Hi,

I have installed Debian3.0 r4 on a machine in work, have an IP address assigned exclusively to it (cheers netsource) and have setup a hostname pointing to this server including a MX record for the server.

There's no problem sending email internally both imap/smtp and pop3/smtp inside the building work grand - I just don't seem to be able to send email outside from inside or inside from outside. I have trawled through /etc/exim/exim.conf but both there and on the web there seems to be references to logging onto your smtp server to send mail rather than just send mail to it.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong here? Is exim the man for the job at all?

Thanks,

Darragh

krinDar

darraghrogan wrote:

There's no problem sending email internally both imap/smtp and pop3/smtp
inside the building work grand - I just don't seem to be able to send
email outside from inside or inside from outside.

What happens when you try to send mail out from the machine ? Does it
accept the mail ? Does it send a mail back saying it cannot deliver ?
Does it give a reason ? Is there anything in the logs ? What is your
configuration ?

ressem

You've tried telnetting to an outside smtp server from the server, and telnetted the server from outside I guess to rule out network issues.

You should try to find whether any communication is being done at all, by way of the logs, ethereal, a manual telnet or whatever. There should be some and you should get the server attempting to send an smtp error code and message back.

Otherwise:

There are lots of possibilities to rule out such as your
domainlist relay_to_domains
hostlist relay_from_hosts
dnslookup


Are you starting from a default exim.cnf or a config from the net, with spamassassin, blacklists or whatever?

Exim can do the job, Postfix configs might be better documented on the net though, as exim tends to be used more for specialised filtering and routing afaik.

darraghrogan

krinDar wrote:

What happens when you try to send mail out from the machine ? Does it
accept the mail ? Does it send a mail back saying it cannot deliver ?
Does it give a reason ? Is there anything in the logs ? What is your
configuration ?

Do you know where I find the error logs on debian for exim?

Thanks,

Darragh

leeroybrown

They should be in '/var/log/exim/'.

darraghrogan

ressem wrote:

You've tried telnetting to an outside smtp server from the server, and telnetted the server from outside I guess to rule out network issues.

You should try to find whether any communication is being done at all, by way of the logs, ethereal, a manual telnet or whatever. There should be some and you should get the server attempting to send an smtp error code and message back.

Otherwise:

There are lots of possibilities to rule out such as your
domainlist relay_to_domains
hostlist relay_from_hosts
dnslookup


Are you starting from a default exim.cnf or a config from the net, with spamassassin, blacklists or whatever?

Exim can do the job, Postfix configs might be better documented on the net though, as exim tends to be used more for specialised filtering and routing afaik.

I've no hassle telnetting in on port 25; I have exim set to allow incoming connections from dsl.esat.net domains so that seems fine. Should I put mail.netsource.ie in as an acceptable domain or what? This server is intended to be primary MX for a domain so how does that effect things?

I have no problems telnetting from the server to port 25 on mail.netsource.ie either.

I read up on google and found mention of an eximconfig script. I ran that and I have configured mail.netsource.ie as a smart host? Correct way to go?

######################################################################
#                      ROUTERS CONFIGURATION                         #
#            Specifies how remote addresses are handled              #
######################################################################
#                          ORDER DOES MATTER                         #
#  A remote address is passed to each in turn until it is accepted.  #
######################################################################

# Remote addresses are those with a domain that does not match any item
# in the "local_domains" setting above.

# Send all mail to a smarthost

smarthost:
  driver = domainlist
  transport = remote_smtp
  route_list = "* mail.netsource.ie bydns_a"

end

No blacklists or anti virus yet - not *nix confident enough yet... An example: Up to now I've been rebooting the server after every configuration change!

darragh

flamegrill

what is the error when sending from inside -> outside

what is the domain name and mx record?

Paul

krinDar

darraghrogan wrote:

Do you know where I find the error logs on debian for exim?

As someone else pointed out they are in /var/log/exim.

darraghrogan wrote:

I ran that and I have configured mail.netsource.ie as a smart host?
Correct way to go?

Are you sure that netsource will relay for you ?

The exim logfiles should tell you what is the problem.

darraghrogan

flamegrill wrote:

what is the error when sending from inside -> outside

what is the domain name and mx record?

Paul

I think I've found the problem:

Looked at the log file (cheers leeroybrown) and found this:

2005-03-23 09:06:25 refused relay (host) to <darragh@cleansounds.com> from <darragh@debian.cleansounds.com> H=(poweredge2400) [212.17.52.209]
(failed to find host name from IP address)

The internal mail client is trying to send smtp mail to debian.cleansounds.com (that's the domain by the way) from inside by passing to the outside. When exim does a reverse dns on 212.17.52.209 (the dsl routers IP, not the server's IP) it discovers that a netsource.ie domain isn't on the list of hosts that it will relay mail from.

I'll add 212.17.52.209 to:

local_domains = localhost:debian.cleansounds.com

or will I add it to:

relay_domains = darragh.dyndns.org:dsl.esat.net

?

Thanks,

Darragh