Correctly forwarding system messages to a valid account

[mattcen]

Hi all,

One of the servers we manage is not receiving system emails (i.e. emails sent from cron and the like to the 'root' account). If I manually send an email using "echo 'Hello World' | mail -s test root", I get the following entries in /var/log/mail.log:

Jun 15 14:55:01 sbls postfix/pickup[28498]: 7E593562156: uid=0 from=<root>
Jun 15 14:55:01 sbls postfix/cleanup[23079]: 7E593562156: message-id=<20100615045501.7E593562156@mail.example.com>
Jun 15 14:55:01 mail postfix/pickup[28498]: 7E593562156: uid=0 from=<root>
Jun 15 14:55:01 sbls postfix/qmgr[14855]: 7E593562156: from=<root@mail.example.com>, size=556, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Jun 15 14:55:01 mail postfix/cleanup[23079]: 7E593562156: message-id=<20100615045501.7E593562156@mail.example.com>
Jun 15 14:55:01 mail postfix/qmgr[14855]: 7E593562156: from=<root@mail.example.com>, size=556, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/smtpd[23085]: connect from localhost.localdomain[127.0.0.1]Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/smtpd[23085]: connect from localhost.localdomain[127.0.0.1]
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/smtpd[23085]: 94596562150: client=localhost.localdomain[127.0.0.1]
Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/smtpd[23085]: 94596562150: client=localhost.localdomain[127.0.0.1]Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/cleanup[23079]: 94596562150: message-id=<20100615045501.7E593562156@mail.example.com>
Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/cleanup[23079]: 94596562150: message-id=<20100615045501.7E593562156@mail.example.com>Ju n 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/smtpd[23085]: disconnect from localhost.localdomain[127.0.0.1]
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/qmgr[14855]: 94596562150: from=<root@mail.example.com>, size=1230, nrcpt=1 (queue active)Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/smtpd[23085]: disconnect from localhost.localdomain[127.0.0.1]Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/qmgr[14855]: 94596562150: from=<root@mail.example.com>, size=1230, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/smtp[23082]: 7E593562156: to=<root@mail.example.com>, orig_to=<root>, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024, delay=1.3, delays=0.37/0.01/0/0.96, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok, id=01040-16, from MTA([127.0.0.1]:10025): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 94596562150)
Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/smtp[23082]: 7E593562156: to=<root@mail.example.com>, orig_to=<root>, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024, delay=1.3, delays=0.37/0.01/0/0.96, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok, id=01040-16, from MTA([127.0.0.1]:10025): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 94596562150)Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/qmgr[14855]: 7E593562156: removed
Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/qmgr[14855]: 7E593562156: removed
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/smtp[23086]: 94596562150: to=<root@mail.example.com>, relay=none, delay=0.04, delays=0.03/0.01/0/0, dsn=5.4.6, status=bounced (mail for mail.example.com loops back to myself)
Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/smtp[23086]: 94596562150: to=<root@mail.example.com>, relay=none, delay=0.04, delays=0.03/0.01/0/0, dsn=5.4.6, status=bounced (mail for mail.example.com loops back to myself)
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/cleanup[23079]: AAFA3562159: message-id=<20100615045502.AAFA3562159@mail.example.com>Ju n 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/cleanup[23079]: AAFA3562159: message-id=<20100615045502.AAFA3562159@mail.example.com>
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/bounce[23087]: 94596562150: sender non-delivery notification: AAFA3562159
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/qmgr[14855]: AAFA3562159: from=<>, size=3231, nrcpt=1 (queue active)Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/bounce[23087]: 94596562150: sender non-delivery notification: AAFA3562159
Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/qmgr[14855]: AAFA3562159: from=<>, size=3231, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/qmgr[14855]: 94596562150: removed
Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/qmgr[14855]: 94596562150: removedJun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/smtp[23086]: AAFA3562159: to=<root@mail.example.com>, relay=none, delay=0.05, delays=0.05/0/0/0, dsn=5.4.6, status=bounced (mail for mail.example.com loops back to myself)Jun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/smtp[23086]: AAFA3562159: to=<root@mail.example.com>, relay=none, delay=0.05, delays=0.05/0/0/0, dsn=5.4.6, status=bounced (mail for mail.example.com loops back to myself)
Jun 15 14:55:02 sbls postfix/qmgr[14855]: AAFA3562159: removedJun 15 14:55:02 mail postfix/qmgr[14855]: AAFA3562159: removed

(Note: example.com has been substituted for the real domain)

As shown above, the email is bounced because the hostname "loops back to myself". I've tried creating an alias so that emails to "root" go to "admin@example.com" but cannot do this from the Admin web interface because it wants an "@hostname" portion with the email address, which will not match the messages the system is trying to send.

I think that the cause of the problem is that the mail server is resolving any email address such as "root" without an explicit hostname to "root@mail.example.com" instead of "root@example.com", and I note that in /opt/zimbra/postfix-2.6.5.2z/conf/main.cf the 'myhostname' entry is 'mail.example.com'. I suspect I need to change this, but am not sure (and don't want to break anything given this is a production system), and also saw elsewhere on the forum that main.cf is auto-generated and is therefore overwritten by... something.


Does anybody have any ideas for me?

Thanks in advance!

--
Regards,
Matthew Cengia

[mattcen]

Bump.

--
Regards,
Matthew Cengia

[phoenix]

Use sendmail or whatever your distribution uses.

[Bill Dee]

Matthew.

Did you come up with a resolution for this? I am experiencing the same issue, and have had no luck searching through the forums.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by Bill Dee

Did you come up with a resolution for this? I am experiencing the same issue, and have had no luck searching through the forums.

Read this whole thread: [SOLVED] Local users relaying through Exim

[Bill Dee]

Still no luck after running the alternatives command, and setting it to use zimbra. I'm still getting status=bounced, mail looops back to myself.

[mattcen]

Unfortunately, somebody else took over this problem from me, and did solve it, but I'm not sure exactly how. I think it had to do with either altering /etc/hosts, or changing the list of domains for which Zimbra will handle mail to include localhost.