By robertdouglass on

I installed Exim4 on my Debian Sarge server as per these instructions:
http://koivi.com/exim4-config/

Now PHP mail() no longer sends mail. these are the errors in the /var/log/exim4/mainlog file:

2006-03-18 20:35:57 1FJyAc-0006Eg-40 ** debian@xyz.serverkompetenz.net <root@xyz.serverkompetenz.net>: Unrouteable address
2006-03-18 20:35:57 1FJyAc-0006Eg-40 debian@xyz.serverkompetenz.net <root@xyz.serverkompetenz.net>: error ignored
2006-03-18 20:35:57 1FJyAc-0006Eg-40 Completed
2006-03-18 20:35:57 1FJyAc-0006Ef-3v Unfrozen by errmsg timer
2006-03-18 20:35:57 1FJyAc-0006Ef-3v ** debian@xyz.serverkompetenz.net <root@xyz.serverkompetenz.net>: Unrouteable address
2006-03-18 20:35:57 1FJyAc-0006Ef-3v debian@xzy.serverkompetenz.net <root@xzy.serverkompetenz.net>: error ignored

How do I go about fixing this? What other information is pertinent and where do I find it? Who else has had the mail() function stop sending mail and how did you fix it? Thanks!

-Robert

Comments

dmitrig01’s picture

dmitrig01 commented

this forum is for drupal support. If your question is about drupal, please give more detail.

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

As many host Drupal on servers like mine, and Drupal sends all sorts of mails, I see this issue as tangentially related to Drupal. When someone installs Drupal and has a problem with a Drupal function, whether or not the problem is actually outside of Drupal (as in this case), they approach it as a Drupal problem. If anyone has faced the particular problem I'm facing now and has a solution, even in the form of a helpful link to a helpful manual with a helpful RTFM, it becomes part of the Drupal knowledge base.

- Robert Douglass

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My Drupal book: Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB and WordPress

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

I think I pasted the wrong error message. This seems to be the pertinent one:

2006-03-18 22:37:05 1FKj6f-0005CL-N1 <= www-data@xyz.serverkompetenz.net U=www-data P=local S=645
2006-03-18 22:37:05 1FKj6f-0005CL-N1 remote host address is the local host: onlinehome.de
2006-03-18 22:37:05 1FKj6f-0005CL-N1 == xyz@onlinehome.de R=smarthost defer (-1): remote host address is the local host
2006-03-18 22:37:05 1FKj6f-0005CL-N1 ** xyz@onlinehome.de: retry timeout exceeded

So what makes it think that a domain is a local domain?

- Robert Douglass

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My Drupal book: Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB and WordPress

robertdouglass’s picture

robertdouglass commented

I ran the exim configuration program:
dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config

Previously I had read instructions to choose the configuration for SmartHosts:
Sending over SmartHost (Relay); Receiving with SMTP or Smartmail

I chose instead the option that seemed to make more sense:
Internet Server - Mail gets sent and received directly over SMTP

What was happening was that I didn't have a username/password set for the SmartHost, so sending was failing. I avoided the need for that by doing the above configuration.

Completely off-topic to Drupal, but maybe the info will help someone nonetheless.

- Robert Douglass

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My Drupal book: Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB and WordPress

half_brick’s picture

half_brick commented

Sorry to thread dig.
Just thought I'd post to this in case others are still having the same problem.

I was, and followed:
http://www.davidhurst.co.uk/2007/06/19/php-mail-and-ssmtp-on-debian-linux/
to install ssmtp

Worked a charm

socialnicheguru’s picture

socialnicheguru commented

thanks. for those of us who need to configure exim4 this is really helpful.

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