Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:16:36 -0400 From: Greg Larkin <glarkin@FreeBSD.org> To: "Aryeh M. Friedman" <aryeh.friedman@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Help with setting up a mail server Message-ID: <4C45AFC4.7020304@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20100720092644.28643f19aryeh.friedman%gmail.com@flosoft.no-ip.biz> References: <20100720092644.28643f19aryeh.friedman%gmail.com@flosoft.no-ip.biz>
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Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
> I am a consultant and was retained by my client to setup qmail or exim
> on a VPS running 8.0-STABLE (i386). After setting up the DNS (A record
> and MX record) we have been unable to send or receive mail. The client
> has/had a working script for installing qmail on 7.1-STABLE but it
> seems to not work on 8.0-STABLE. They are using the same VPS provider
> who this 7.1-STABLE install script worked under. I have tried
> everything I can think of to make it work including asking obvious
> questions on -questions@.
>
> I informed the client that the task is likely beyond me capabilities
> but I would help recruit someone who would be able to do it at a
> reasonable fee paid to them (I am acting as a no cost middle man on
> this [I am helping the client for free since I was unable to get it
> done]).
>
> Please send any ideas and/or offers to do the job
Hi Aryeh,
Here are some things that I do to troubleshoot problems like this:
- - Check if there are any firewalls (client-side or server-side) that
block the ports, tcp 25/587 and tcp 110/143 in this case. If you're
using POP3 or IMAP over SSL, check tcp 993 and tcp 995, too.
- - Check if the listening ports are ready to accept connections with the
command "netstat -an | grep LISTEN". Do you see the ports you expect?
- - Dumb question - are the mail server processes running?
- - Assuming the processes are running and the ports are listening, what
happens when you telnet to them from within the machine, e.g.:
telnet localhost 25
telnet localhost 110
telnet localhost 143
- - Can you ping the mail server hostname?
- - Use "dig" to do lookups on your A and MX records. Did you bump the
DNS serial number and reload the DNS server after you added the records?
- - If that works, now try telnetting to the same ports from an outside
network using the DNS hostnames, e.g.:
telnet my.mail.server.com 25
...
- - Please send me your hostname privately, if you like, and I can check
DNS and ports from here.
Hope that helps,
Greg
- --
Greg Larkin
http://www.FreeBSD.org/ - The Power To Serve
http://www.sourcehosting.net/ - Ready. Set. Code.
http://twitter.com/sourcehosting/ - Follow me, follow you
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