email and imap server initial configuration

I am having trouble finding proper docs for Suse 10's email and imap
servers. Can someone point me to document(s) that cover this topic? Or
perhaps help me resolve some very basic configuration issues:

- I configured the MTA to use localhost, and I can send mail internally
(from the command line mail program). No problems there.
- I configured Kmail to use comcast's SMTP server for sending and can send
mail externally that way, with no problem.

- My firewall has the mail server open (port 25 = SMTP), but I cannot
receive SMTP email. It does not get rejected, it just "disappears".

- My firewall has imap, pop3, etc open, and I have those services running.
but I cannot use IMAP. I get prompted for the password, but it does not
seem to accept it.

Any help or directions to the docs would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

zbruno@melloni.com wrote in news:EWVrf.1309$012.188@prv-
forum2.provo.novell.com:

> Any help or directions to the docs would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_suse_10.0

HTH
Uwe

--
Novell Support Connection Volunteer SysOp
Please don't send me support related e-mail unless I ask you to do so.

Although the article is great and I used it for other things that I had to
configure, it did not produce the desired results for email.

1st) I verified through telnet that I can connect to procmail and get the
appropriate responses. But any mail inbound mail goes to never-neverland.
And the same happens for outgoing mail. No errors of any kind, just
disappearing mail.

2nd) I didn't get to the imap portion, because my Suse 10 does not have the
courier-... packages. I just have an imap package (no courier) in the
installation CD. Version difference?

3rd) If I can't get SUSE's custom deployment of procmail to work, is the
distribution likely to break if I remove all email components and deploy my
own email server and clients?

> http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_suse_10.0
>
> HTH
> Uwe
>
> --
> Novell Support Connection Volunteer SysOp
> Please don't send me support related e-mail unless I ask you to do so.

zbruno@melloni.com wrote in
newsfhsf.1853$012.1345@prv-forum2.provo.novell.com:

> 1st) I verified through telnet that I can connect to procmail and get
> the appropriate responses. But any mail inbound mail goes to
> never-neverland. And the same happens for outgoing mail. No errors of
> any kind, just disappearing mail.

Never used procmail, sorry.

> 2nd) I didn't get to the imap portion, because my Suse 10 does not
> have the courier-... packages. I just have an imap package (no
> courier) in the installation CD. Version difference?

Could be it is not on the CD, but on the DVD. Add a full SuSE mirror (I
use ftp.tu-chemnitz.de, which is pretty local to me) to the Yast
installation sources.

> 3rd) If I can't get SUSE's custom deployment of procmail to work, is
> the distribution likely to break if I remove all email components and
> deploy my own email server and clients?

SuSE uses postfix internally, so I don't think it will break anything.

Uwe

--
Novell Support Connection Volunteer SysOp
Please don't send me support related e-mail unless I ask you to do so.

Does Comcast block port 25 ? If you don't have a business acount, they
probably block many ports. Also, have you tried to telnet to port 25
from outside of the Comcast network? Have an associate try from another
ISP and see if the connection works.

HTH,

Joel Katzman,
TCM Integrated Systems Inc.
Freeport NY 11520

zbruno@melloni.com wrote:

>Although the article is great and I used it for other things that I had to
>configure, it did not produce the desired results for email.
>
>1st) I verified through telnet that I can connect to procmail and get the
>appropriate responses. But any mail inbound mail goes to never-neverland.
>And the same happens for outgoing mail. No errors of any kind, just
>disappearing mail.
>
>2nd) I didn't get to the imap portion, because my Suse 10 does not have the
>courier-... packages. I just have an imap package (no courier) in the
>installation CD. Version difference?
>
>3rd) If I can't get SUSE's custom deployment of procmail to work, is the
>distribution likely to break if I remove all email components and deploy my
>own email server and clients?
>
>
>
>>http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_suse_10.0
>>
>>HTH
>>Uwe
>>
>>--
>>Novell Support Connection Volunteer SysOp
>>Please don't send me support related e-mail unless I ask you to do so.
>>
>>
>
>
>

The problem is not with comcast. I still have a RedHat 9 server in place
(that I am replacing with Suse 10) and it works fine.

The curious thing is that I have now uninstalled postfix and replaced it
with the sendmail package from the install disks (because I know Sendmail
better than postfix) and in its default configuration I still can't send
mail anywhere other than to localhost (I need to double-check, but I think
I am finally at least receiving). The messages are a bit clearer, though
strangely confusing since they say that the mail is being routed back to my
mail server even when I explicitly address an external domain (i.e.:
myaccount@yahoo.com).

I think I am being bitten by some Suse-specific default. I never
experienced this kind of problem with any other distribution (and I have
used many over the last 10 years).

Thanks for trying. I'll keep plowing at it, and will report the solution
if I find it...

> Does Comcast block port 25 ? If you don't have a business acount, they
> probably block many ports. Also, have you tried to telnet to port 25
> from outside of the Comcast network? Have an associate try from another
> ISP and see if the connection works.
>
> HTH,
>
> Joel Katzman,
> TCM Integrated Systems Inc.
> Freeport NY 11520
>
> zbruno@melloni.com wrote:
>
> >Although the article is great and I used it for other things that I had to
> >configure, it did not produce the desired results for email.
> >
> >1st) I verified through telnet that I can connect to procmail and get the
> >appropriate responses. But any mail inbound mail goes to never-neverland.
> >And the same happens for outgoing mail. No errors of any kind, just
> >disappearing mail.
> >
> >2nd) I didn't get to the imap portion, because my Suse 10 does not have the
> >courier-... packages. I just have an imap package (no courier) in the
> >installation CD. Version difference?
> >
> >3rd) If I can't get SUSE's custom deployment of procmail to work, is the
> >distribution likely to break if I remove all email components and deploy my
> >own email server and clients?
> >
> >
> >
> >>http://www.howtoforge.com/perfect_setup_suse_10.0
> >>
> >>HTH
> >>Uwe
> >>
> >>--
> >>Novell Support Connection Volunteer SysOp
> >>Please don't send me support related e-mail unless I ask you to do so.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >

SOLUTION:

The problem is caused by a default in /etc/sysconfig/sendmail Suse (or
something in Yast did) sets the smarthost to point back to itself. This
effectively makes all outgoing mail to be sent back. Comment it out, and
the problem is gone.

It took me days to discover this little unnecessary and undocumented "gem".
As an old curse I once read says... "may the fleas of a thousand camels
infest the armpits of the programmer who did this".

Programming lesson number 147: No matter how well intentioned you are when
you change a piece of code (or configuration) away from the norm...
DOCUMENT the @#%%@#& change!!!

zbruno,

thanks for the feedback.
Now if you could add some more details, maybe somebody else having this
problem will be able to find the solution immediately when he reads this
group.... :-)

TIA
Uwe


--
Novell Support Connection Volunteer SysOp
Please don't send me support related e-mail unless I ask you to do so.

Uwe Buckesfeld wrote:
> zbruno,
>
> thanks for the feedback.
> Now if you could add some more details, maybe somebody else having this
> problem will be able to find the solution immediately when he reads this
> group.... :-)
>
> TIA
> Uwe
>
>

Well, this is not easy things to setup, but for me it's much more
problems with redhat and debian, since I'm know suse better.

Redhat has a history with config tools for an older version of sendmail
then the installed one, and some broken m4 files that could give
unexpected results.

It just depend on how you work.
Yast can be broken so everything it does end up as .SuSEconfig files
if you go direct to the config files in redhat mode.

I have few problems with yast , but the postfix > cyrus transport
use to work, then it need some work by hand to enable salsdbpassword
,ssl for imaps and little special stuff, but I can't tell if yast can do
this now, since I'm in suse mode, and clone my config from the old mail
server by hand :-)

And btw. what I can remember so is cyrus always on the DVD only, at
least since the dual layer, but maybe also on the dual side DVD whatever
that version was. (8.0 maybe)

/birger