MTA Error

[SirGarvin]

Hello all,

My work is testing Zimbra on CentOS 6 to possibly use to host for customers. I ran into something that has been tough to find a good answer on. After the installation was complete, I wasn't able to send/receive mail on test accounts. Under the admin console under the service tab it shows a red X next to MTA. This may or may not be a really dumb question but I'm guessing that's my problem and I have no idea what the cause is based off of the google searches I did. If anyone can help it would be great! Thanks.

[phoenix]

See what servers are (or aren't) running and look in the log files for errors, make sure no other MTA is running and that you have valid DNS A & MX records plus a correct /etc/hosts file. These questions have been asked and answered many times in the forums.

[SirGarvin]

Ok thanks. My unix knowledge isn't that great so I just want to double check. First off, the dns records are fine I already checked into that a while ago. By "other MTA" do you mean anything dealing with mail transfer on the WHOLE network? Lastly, because I'm so inexperienced in unix, I am in all honesty not sure what to look for in the logs that would help me.

[SirGarvin]

With the logs though, (/var/log/zimbra.log) I just see a lot of "fatal: Queue report unavailable - mail system is down," or "Mail system is down." There are various error codes too (541,798,807,880, etc,.)

[phoenix]

Ok thanks. My unix knowledge isn't that great so I just want to double check. First off, the dns records are fine I already checked into that a while ago.

Perhaps they are but I prefer to see some confirmation that they are correct. You should provide the output from all the commands in the 'Verify....' section of the Split DNS article.

By "other MTA" do you mean anything dealing with mail transfer on the WHOLE network?

I mean another MTA running on your Zimbra server, CentOS by default install and enables postfix, you need to check if it's running and if it is disable it and stop the current one from running.]

With the logs though, (/var/log/zimbra.log) I just see a lot of "fatal: Queue report unavailable - mail system is down," or "Mail system is down."

That would be because the MTA isn't running, go to a terminal on your Zimbra server and run the following:

su - zimbra
zmcontrol status

[SirGarvin]

Perhaps they are but I prefer to see some confirmation that they are correct. You should provide the output from all the commands in the 'Verify....' section of the Split DNS article.

I mean another MTA running on your Zimbra server, CentOS by default install and enables postfix, you need to check if it's running and if it is disable it and stop the current one from running.]

That would be because the MTA isn't running, go to a terminal on your Zimbra server and run the following:

su - zimbra
zmcontrol status

That right there was my biggest problem. Thank you that was one thing I didn't know due to my lack of use with CentOS. If I have further problems I'll give the output from those other commands. Hopefully I'll be good with this though.

[SirGarvin]

Thanks that did help! Since I personally didn't install CentOS on the VM I didn't realize that was enabled by default. I rebooted and MTA is running. I do have one other question however. Where under the management console do I create mx records for the domains? Either that or what has to be entered in the CLI. I already made the appropriate A and MX records for Zimbra on our MS server previous to posting this thread but I don't see where to do this part.

[phoenix]

Thanks that did help!

You're welcome.

Since I personally didn't install CentOS on the VM I didn't realize that was enabled by default. I rebooted and MTA is running.

It's a habit with some versions of linux, they also sometimes reenable the MTA when you update the software.

I do have one other question however. Where under the management console do I create mx records for the domains? Either that or what has to be entered in the CLI. I already made the appropriate A and MX records for Zimbra on our MS server previous to posting this thread but I don't see where to do this part.

There is no need (and no facility) to create A & MX records in the Admin UI, that's purely a function of a DNS server on your LAN (if you're behind a NAT router). You can always check the DNS records by running the commands in the 'Verify.....' section of the Split DNS article.

[SirGarvin]

Okay. That definitely means its something withe MX record I already have. When I do a dig mx on my zimbra host I don't get an answer on it. For some reason it doesn't seem to like my record even though it's pointing at the A record (which does resolve). I'll probably just have to keep looking until I figure out where I made a mistake.

[phoenix]

Okay. That definitely means its something withe MX record I already have. When I do a dig mx on my zimbra host I don't get an answer on it. For some reason it doesn't seem to like my record even though it's pointing at the A record (which does resolve). I'll probably just have to keep looking until I figure out where I made a mistake.

Post the output of all the commands in the verify section of the Split DNS article and it will probably give us clue to the problem.