Re: How do you edit the /etc/hosts with the smtp information - fetchmail problems

[joost@topaz.mdcc.cx (Joost Kooij)]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2001 at 04:28:54AM -0300, hzi@uol.com.br wrote:
> I've been having prblems with fetchmail, getting a "SMTP connect failed" message.
> Since I read in the fetchmail FAQ that the problem could be that my SMTP
> port listener is down or inaccessible.

Try:

  telnet 127.0.0.1 25

or 

  telnet localhost smtp

If you get a response, the mta is listening allright.  If not, enable it,
somehow.  If it is up and running, it may be thinking that you are a relaying
spammer, every time when you try to have fetchmail inject the mail from your
isp into your private mail system.  Perhaps putting "user foo is user
bar here" in your fetchmailrc will help, if that is in fact the problem.

You need to run fetchmail with maximum verbosity and then look at the logging
where it went wrong.  It's hard to say what to change if all you can tell is:
"it doesn't work".  I need to know what doesn't work and why it doesn't work.

> The configuration of my /etc/hosts file has no line refering to SMTP. I reckon
> this is the problem.
> Can you guide me in writing /etc/hosts in order to enable SMTP?

No, because it doesn't work like that.  Perhaps you read something somewhere 
about /etc/hosts.allow or /etc/hosts.deby, but that is very unlikely to be a
problem when you are connecting from localhost to localhost.  Ignore it for now.

Cheers,


Joost