Postfix newbie can't get outside LAN

[pavNell]

Hello,

I want to send an email message to my_work.com from my linux box at home using mailx. That's it. Only outbound mail too. I have a static IP and a domain name. I have postfix installed and running but I can't seem to send anything outside of my LAN. I'm guessing that some of the variables inside main.cf aren't set correctly and that's because I'm a dolt and I don't understand. Any sample config file settings to get outside of my lan???

My firewall allows outbound connections on all ports too.
Thanks.

 

[zeland]

DNS problems? Your postfix box must be able to talk to a DNS server that can return the MX record for my_work.com. If you do:

dig my_work.com MX

Do you get a valid responce?


--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[zeland]

Hands working faster than the brain. Hit the submit before reading through.

Just to clarify, you need to run the dig command on your postfix server.


--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[pavNell]

I ran
htdig my_work.com
and got nothing.

I have my isp's nameservers listed in /etc/resolve.conf if it's worth anything.

I can't htdig anything. I had to install htdig too. Perhaps there's a conf file for it?

 

[pavNell]

O.k. I have dig working now. And I'm able to htdig the my_work.com site. Anything else?

 

[zeland]

dig & htdig (aka ht://dig) are 2 different pieces of software. dig is provided by the bind-utils package. Below is what I get when I query redhat.com for their MX record.

[zeland@ws18 ~]$ dig redhat.com MX

; <<>> DiG 9.3.1 <<>> redhat.com MX
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 52941
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 3, AUTHORITY: 13, ADDITIONAL: 11

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;redhat.com. IN MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
redhat.com. 80 IN MX 10 mx1.redhat.com.
redhat.com. 80 IN MX 10 mx3.redhat.com.
redhat.com. 80 IN MX 20 mx2.redhat.com.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
com. 81290 IN NS i.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS j.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS k.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS l.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS m.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS a.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS b.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS c.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS d.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS e.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS f.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS g.gtld-servers.net.
com. 81290 IN NS h.gtld-servers.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
mx1.redhat.com. 80 IN A 66.187.233.31
mx3.redhat.com. 80 IN A 66.187.233.32
mx2.redhat.com. 80 IN A 66.187.237.31
a.gtld-servers.net. 163735 IN A 192.5.6.30
a.gtld-servers.net. 163734 IN AAAA 2001:503:a83e::2:30
b.gtld-servers.net. 163774 IN A 192.33.14.30
b.gtld-servers.net. 165764 IN AAAA 2001:503:231d::2:30
c.gtld-servers.net. 162040 IN A 192.26.92.30
d.gtld-servers.net. 163735 IN A 192.31.80.30
e.gtld-servers.net. 163735 IN A 192.12.94.30
f.gtld-servers.net. 157418 IN A 192.35.51.30

;; Query time: 240 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.0.4#53(192.168.0.4)
;; WHEN: Wed Dec 7 11:08:05 2005
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 512


Take note of the line:

;; SERVER: 192.168.0.4#53(192.168.0.4)

This is telling me that my dig query was sent to 192.168.0.4 (my internal DNS).


--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[pavNell]

Ok.
apt-get remove htdig
apt-get install bind-utils

Now,
dig company.com MX
returns info and the line:

;; SERVER: 207.158.92.18#53(207.158.92.18)

which is my isp's dns server

 

[zeland]

Alright, looks like we're getting somewhere. In the returned result, does your mail server show up in the answer section? Going back to the RedHat example, you should see at least 1 MX record. In RedHats's case, they have 3.

;; ANSWER SECTION:
redhat.com. 80 IN MX 10 mx1.redhat.com.
redhat.com. 80 IN MX 10 mx3.redhat.com.
redhat.com. 80 IN MX 20 mx2.redhat.com.


--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[pavNell]

If it helps, here's all uncommented lines in my main.cf....


queue_directory = /var/spool/postfix

command_directory = /usr/sbin

daemon_directory = /usr/lib/postfix

mail_owner = postfix

myhostname = myhost.blah.com

mydomain = blah.com

myorigin = $mydomain

inet_interfaces = all

mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain, $mydomain

unknown_local_recipient_reject_code = 550

mynetworks_style = host

relay_domains = $mydestination

relayhost = smtp.my_isp.net

relay_recipient_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/relay_recipients

alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases

smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP

debug_peer_level = 2

debugger_command =
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
xxgdb $daemon_directory/$process_name $process_id & sleep 5

delay_warning_time = 4

sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix

newaliases_path = /usr/bin/newaliases.postfix

mailq_path = /usr/bin/mailq.postfix

setgid_group = postdrop

html_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.1.5/html

manpage_directory = /usr/share/man

sample_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.1.5/samples

readme_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.1.5/README_FILES



Also, I'm sitting behind a linksys router too.

 

[pavNell]

O.k.

just so we're on the same page, doing a:
dig the_company_I_want_to_email_to.com MX

returns two lines under the ;;ANSWER section. And doing a:

dig mydomain_name.com MX
does not return anything for ;;ANSWER

 

[pavNell]

I found a better tool for what I'm trying to accomplish.
Using mail with msmtp.

Does just what I was needing to do and not having to setup a server.

I appreciate your help with this though. Thanks.

m.