Re: mail (un)delivery

[michael <cs@networkingnewsletter.org.uk>]

On Mon, 2007-09-03 at 09:27 -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 03, 2007 at 02:12:42PM +0100, michael wrote:
> > I'm feeling a bit dense today so any help welcome!
> > 
> > Essentially, I've just noticed that local mail hasn't been delivered for
> > a couple of weeks. I can email off my box but not to my username on the
> > box. I can't see what the problem is. They are probably both a red
> > herring [1] but (a) I did have some DNS problems just prior to the last
> > received email and (b) switched off the box and physically moved it to a
> > new location (and the new IP number) just after the last received email.
> > 
> > I'm unsure how to go about debugging this so all pointers welcome!
> 
> Assuming that you're using exim4, check you
> /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf file for the wrong IP addresses.  If
> you find any, follow the instructions at the top of the file.

>From what I can tell it seems fine:

michael@ratty:/etc/exim4$ less update-exim4.conf.conf 
# /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
#
# Edit this file and /etc/mailname by hand and execute update-exim4.conf
# yourself or use 'dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config'

dc_eximconfig_configtype='smarthost'
dc_other_hostnames='ratty'
dc_local_interfaces='127.0.0.1'
dc_readhost='ratty.phy.umist.ac.uk'
dc_relay_domains=''
dc_minimaldns='false'
dc_relay_nets=''
dc_smarthost='mailrouter.mcc.ac.uk'
CFILEMODE='644'
dc_use_split_config='false'
dc_hide_mailname='false'
dc_mailname_in_oh='true'
dc_localdelivery='mail_spool'




> 
> Assuming that you have written yourself an email on the same box, what
> error messages do you get?  What does mailq say?  Are you having exim do
> a reverse DNS lookup for every mail?

Yes, the box is ratty.phy.umist.ac.uk and if I email myself (mail
localusername) I get no error msgs. 

mailq gives me a permission error unless I use 'sudo mailq
localusername' which then gives me 
      michael-H
    *** spool read error: No such file or directory ***


(not sure what that means...)

I said 'no' to keeping num of DNS lookups minimal. 

NB: nslookup on the machine gives multiple entries:
$ nslookup ratty.phy.umist.ac.uk
Server:         130.88.13.7
Address:        130.88.13.7#53

Name:   ratty.phy.umist.ac.uk
Address: 130.88.15.179
Name:   ratty.phy.umist.ac.uk
Address: 130.88.128.163