Very Computer

 Is this a sendmail problem????

For some time now, I have be having problems getting mail from
my pop accounts using fetchmail.  Here's what I get when I try to
use fetchmail in my linux account named wcrowshaw, retrieving mail from
a pop account name wcrowshaw:

fetchmail: 5.0.3 querying mail.ic.edu (protocol POP3) at Fri, 13 Aug
1999
 18:08:55 -0400 (EDT)
fetchmail: POP3< +OK QPOP (version 2.5) at bartman starting.
fetchmail: POP3> USER wcrowshaw

fetchmail: POP3< +OK Password required for wcrowshaw.
fetchmail: POP3> PASS *

fetchmail: POP3< +OK wcrowshaw has 3 messages (2453 octets).
fetchmail: POP3> STAT
fetchmail: POP3< +OK 3 2453
fetchmail: POP3> LAST
fetchmail: POP3< +OK 0 is the last read message.
3 messages for wcrowshaw at mail.ic.edu (2453 octets).
fetchmail: POP3> LIST

fetchmail: POP3< +OK 3 messages (2453 octets)
fetchmail: POP3< 1 817
fetchmail: POP3< 2 822
fetchmail: POP3< 3 814
fetchmail: POP3< .
fetchmail: POP3> RETR 1
fetchmail: POP3< +OK 817 octets
reading message 1 of 3 (817 octets)
fetchmail: timeout after 0 seconds waiting for listener to respond.
fetchmail: Query status=7
fetchmail: normal termination, status 7

I'm getting closer to solving the problem.  I don't think fetchmail
is the culprit but sendmail.  I think this is indicated by the line
that says "waiting for listener to respond."  I think the listener
it is talking about here is sendmail.

Here's my reasoning.
1) In fetchmail's man pages, it says that fetchmail retrieves the
 messages, and then forwards them for distribution to my machine
 Mail Delivery agent (MDA) which is usually sendmail.

2)In a faq provided with fetchmail's docs,it addresses the problem
 that I am having: fetchmail appears to work fine, but the mail never
 shows up. If this happens it says, "you may not be connecting to
 the SMTP listener."  It continues "Fetchmail itself is probably
 working, but your SMTP port 25 listener is down or inaccessible."
 It says, "The first thing to check is if you can telnet to port 25
 on your smtp host (which is normally 'localhost' unless you've
 specified an smtp option in your .fetchmailrc or on the command
 line) and get a greeting line from the listener.  If the SMTP host
 is inaccessible or the listener is down, fix that first."

Now here is my interpretation of this.  I telneted to the remote
machine's SMTP listener with "telnet mail.ic.edu 25."  I got the
greeting message from the sendmail from that machine.  O.k. that is
working.

But since it says to try "your smtp host (which is normally
 'localhost'..."I thought maybe this means my own smtp host,
 on my machine, perhaps my sendmail.  So I tried "telnet localhost
 25."  I get this message:

"Trying 127.0.0.1...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Network is unreachable"

In other words, I get no greeting message from sendmail.  My
listener is down.  If this interpretation of the faq and this
interpretation of the telnet responses is correct, then my problem
with retrieving e-mail from my pop accounts lies with sendmail.

So now I think I need to fix sendmail to retrieve my e-mail
address. But I don't know where to begin. I know that my system
uses sendmail, and I know that sendmail is up and running, because
ps -e shows it's process running.

If you're still with me this far, is my fetchmail problem a sendmail
problem?  If so, how do I fix it?  What setting in linuxconf should I
fix?

--
w. crowshaw

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Can you "telnet localhost" (on the default port) and login?
If not (I expect youll get the same message as above), then
your loopback device is not configured correctly.

Quote:> In other words, I get no greeting message from sendmail.  My
> listener is down.  If this interpretation of the faq and this
> interpretation of the telnet responses is correct, then my problem
> with retrieving e-mail from my pop accounts lies with sendmail.

You cant even reach your machine. sendmail never remarks that you are
trying to connect. Configure your loopback device and it should work.

Bye...

        Dirk

Thanks Dirk,

I think that you are right about the loopback configuration. So how to
do I go about correcting it?

--
w. crowshaw

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Hmm. Normally this is done automagically at installation time, never had
to do it on my own.

First check your kernel config wether or not loopback device is
supportet and compile a new kernel if needed.
Then check /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo0(?) for correct
settings. I could send you mine when Im back home.

Bye...

        Dirk

Could you post the info instead? I have the same
problem, and others might, too.

Thanks very much!

Joongul Lee

configuration. So how to

Quote:> > do I go about correcting it?

> Hmm. Normally this is done automagically at

installation time, never had

Quote:> to do it on my own.

> First check your kernel config wether or not
loopback device is
> supportet and compile a new kernel if needed.
> Then check

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo0(?) for
correct

Quote:> settings. I could send you mine when Im back
home.

> Bye...

>    Dirk

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I solved the problem. This is how I did it.  I first install R5 on a
second hard drive using the redhat installer instead of the xinstaller.
I booted this system up and found that the lo interface was up and that
sendmail was running o.k.  So then I started to compare my two linux
systems to figure out what was the difference between the two.

It turns out that I probably installed with the problem when I used the
xinstaller.  Or I didn't*it up myself.  I have always had long
standing problems with the networking of R5 that the xinstaller
installed.  On first boot, months ago, I noticed that there was no
/etc/hosts file and the etc/HOSTNAME file was empty.   Well, the
etc/hosts file is the most important for bringing up the loopback
interface that, in turn will allow you to run both sendmail and
fetchmail correctly.

Well, i looked at the linux that I installed with the redhat installer,
and found that these files were there.  So I created them exactly as
follows.  For etc/HOSTNAME, I put in the line: localhost.localdomain.
In the file /etc/hosts, I put in the following line for the loopback
interface: 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain

Now, there was one piece missing.  Ever since I installed R5 a couple
months ago, I always got the complaint that the file
/etc/sysconfig/network file was missing.  The presence or abscence of
this file acts as a trigger in many of the rc init scripts.  So I looked
at this file on the R5 that I installed with the redhat installer.  It
was there.  I copied the information from it, created a file
/etc/sysconfig/network, and placed the information I copied within.
It simply contains the lines:
NETWORKING=yes
FORWARD_IPV4=false
HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain

I booted up linux on my original harddrive with the xinstaller
installed, and I have fixed my problems.  First, the loopback interface
now works (lo).  This allows sendmail to actually be able to deliver
mail on the localhost.  This in turns allows for fetchmail to transport
the mail to sendmail for delivery.

Fixing the loopback interface, I think will solve many problems I have
been having. Many application depend on this interface for whatever
reason.  I think it has even fixed gnome-ppp, when all I could use
before was ezppp.

I hope this information helps somebody.  It has taken me many HOURS to
sort this problem out, and I hope somebody could be spared this trouble.

--
w. crowshaw

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