Mail not being sent. using sendmail

[zoomforce]

Ok another newbie question!

I installed sendmail today not really knowing what the hell I was doing.. anyways;

I set up a form, used formail to process, and there seems to be a problem, because as far as formail is concerned everything is hunky dorry, but the emails not being sent.

am i supossed to configure sendmail somewhere? I just installed it.

Another note, in my var/spool/mail folder everytime i run the formail script, the apache "email message" file increases and updates... i dont know what that means, I take it sendmail sends the message to that file, and its supposed to get sent out..

Im hoping Rhytmace is in the house cause he always helps, but help form anyoe that knows whats up would be much appreciated.

 

[LeDam]

Put the result of the sendmail command :

sendmail -v YOURMAIL

You have probably to change something in your configuration.
Send me a mail an i will configure sendmail with you (i mad it 2 times, in linux and AIX....):
d.vancutsem@lbk.be

 

[RhythmAce]

Sendmail should be able to "send" e-mail right out of the box. On some distros like red hat you have to configure /etc/mail/sendmail.mc to be able to receive mail from the outside world. From the looks of things, sendmail is doing its job. It's taking the info from the FormMail script and sending it to the address specified in the script. Open /var/spool/mail/username (where username is the name of a user on your system) and you will see that it is a big file with a lot of e-mails in it. If this file exists, all you need is a POP3 server to pop it to your e-mail client. I use qpopper. You can download it from the web and use "tar -zxvf *.gz" to unzip and untar it into a new directory. cd to that directory and type the 3 following commands:

./configure
make
make install

this will configure it to your system, compile it and then install it on your system. By default it will run under xinetd unless you use ./configure --enable-standalone. Check the docs to make sure that is the correct command line arg. This will cause it to run as a stand alone server. Then you should be able to point to your server in your e-mail client just like you would your isp mail account and that file we talked about will be devided into seperate e-mails. If you get this going, let me know and can help you with tweaking your server to receive mail from the outside world. Sorry it took so long to get back but I was out of town.

 

[zoomforce]

Rhtym, you are a god in your own right... what do you do for work?

Ok, i went to that folder and ther is no user... just an apache named message.. i open that file up with the tex editor and all the emails that weer supposed to be sent from the form are in there... for example the form sends the submited a message and then me a message (to an address of the server, not attached to the domain my server runs on, i havnt figured that out yet)

but all the emails are in that message, the outgoing ones i guess.

I think its working like you said, i just think it doesnt know how to send out the emails? wil lthat pop program do that..

I have a feeling i need to set up some users or something im not sire.

theres also a root email message in the sppol folder, with a buncha touch creating permission denied messages.. i dont even know where to beign understanding that.

 

[RhythmAce]

Let's sart at the beginning. You need dns to point to your mail server just like it points to your web server. The dns record that points to your web server is called the "A" record. The one that points to your mail server is called the "MX" record. I don't know how you edit your records on your particular dns service but I'll give you the general idea of what to do. First, you have to add another ip address to your a record. For example "mail.yourdomain.com" and give it the same ip as your web server. You can have as many of these sub-domains as you want pointing to the same ip. Next, edit your MX record and have mail.yourdomain.com handles mail 1st for yourdomain.com. If you have to edit your MX record manually, let me know if you have any questions about what goes on the line. You should be able to send mail at this point. E-mail yourself at your outside account and see if it gets there. If it did, let me know and I'll post a working copy of sendmail.mc that will allow you to receive mail too.

 

[zoomforce]

ok.. I use Hn.org as a DNS server cause i figured there not a hope in hell i would know how to configure a dns server at this point. I will go and see if i can edit b records.

On a side note, am i supossed to enter my domain name when i install linux or use localhost? just wondering because after i install it, and goto my domain (

http://www.seekbetter.com)

it says like a4b5rtyewhewrwhwe.bc.hsia.blah or something.

I just reinstalled linux and put that in, I am hoping it will work

Rythym, I feel like i should be paying you for this. Maybe once i get this working I will Paypal you a case of beer or something I dont think you realize how much I apreciate your help.

 

[zoomforce]

ok, i went to hg.com and entered an mx record. do i need a MX pref? heres what the dns list looks like:

Rec FQDN Rec Type Rec Value DynDNS MX Pref Commands
seekbetter.com NS ns1.hn.org 0 0
seekbetter.com NS aux1.hn.org 0 0

http://www.seekbetter.com

CNAME seekbetter.com 0 0
seekbetter.com A 142.173.111.209 0 0
mail.seekbetter.com MX 142.173.111.209 0 0

look good? i just gotta reinstall sendmail now. (Mandrake uses a replacement of sendmail, post something.. it sounds easier.

 

[zoomforce]

oh my god rhytm.. i didnt instal sendmail but i flew a email to contact@seekbetter.com and it shows up in my spool/mail folder as "contact" I think it works! im goina go and find that pop program you are talking about and see if i can get it with that? thanks man! I will let you know.

 

[zoomforce]

well, i dl qpooper, onto my desktop, and unarchived it
then i opend shell and su my self
then i typed ./configure and it does a few things then says error: no acceptable cc found in $path
man oh man

 

[RhythmAce]

Try logging in as root and see if that works for ya. Using su may not change you regular user path.

 

[zoomforce]

k i will thanks!

 

[zoomforce]

it didnt work, i logged in as root and it gives the same error. Is this a mandrake issue? what linux do you use?

 

[zoomforce]

the same error is happening when i try and install sendmail through the shell

 

[RhythmAce]

I use HedHat 7.2 It comes with a pop3 daemon called pop3d that runs under xinetd. You might check your services and see if you have it and if you can start it. I've never tried it myself so I don't know how good it works. You might also want to download a program called webmin from

http://www.webmin.com

to see if it's helpful in seting up your servers. To answer your earlier question about what kind of work I do, I own my own construction company and do residential remodeling. I started hosting my own website about 6 months ago and have had to learn how to set up a webserver and mail server. Most of the stuff is still fresh in my mind and i know how hard it is to try to understand some of the technical jive so I try to explain things in a way that is easy to understand. I'm rebuilding my website from scratch so there's not a lot to look at but if ya wanna take a peek, the address is

http://www.nakremodeling.com

 

[zoomforce]

you mean redhat hey? im goina try it then. that webmin looks good too, are you runnig a DNS server on the same box? that my next step. is webmin easy to use?

Nice site, I am new to this whole linux thing, I own a Webdesign company (pretty ironic hey that i don't know diddly) at

http://www.zoomforce.com.

Im good at perl and flash and that s about it

 

[RhythmAce]

Have you been able to compile ANY programs yet? Webmin comes in 2 versions, a source version and an rpm version. If mandrake doesn't use rpm then you will have to compile webmin also. If it complains about not being able to find cc in $path, Do a find command like this:

find / -name cc

cc is a link to gcc which is your compiler. If you don't see it or if it's in a directory not in your path, look for gcc. It should be in /usr/bin/. If gcc exists, you can make a link to gcc called cc with the following command:

ln -s gcc cc

This assumes you are in /usr/bin and gcc is there with you.

 

[zoomforce]

hey, i have never been able to use compile, ive just installed things with mandrake update, its like a windows update. maybe my problem is im not insatalling form /usr/bin, im installing from /home/user1/desktop

I tried an rpm to but it when i type it in it says something about redhat then i press enter and enter and i dont get a prompt anymore.

Man this thread is getting long i hope others find this info useful as well.

 

[zoomforce]

well, i installed red hat.. seems everything actually works (installers)

one problem, i installed apache, but when i try to goto my website, its not working... i try the domain and the ip number.. in mandrake when i installed mandrake it just worked right off the bat, do i need to setup or install apache some more?

 

[zoomforce]

well, there is no cc or gcc in my usr/bin folder.

 

[zoomforce]

well im about two steps from giving up on Linux but I would be too mad at wasting all my time hee hee. I think it was a bad idea to switch distros half way between learning, since im having the same compile errors on redhat as with mandrake, but im a little more confused on the redhat.

boy o boy. Compilers should be installed automatically right? no cc or gcc anywhere...