From: SysAdmin (postlistsofti.com)
Date: Wed Oct 01 2003 - 18:00:24 CDT

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At 03:19 PM 10/1/2003, William Kimball Jr. wrote:
>syslogd reports the error on system boot. It's frustrating considering
>the file is obviously present. I have restarted
>the server after affecting all the changes listed in this message to check
>up on this error; same problem. Syslog
>cannot find /var/log/popauth.fifo even though it is clearly available.
>
>| I notice you have changed some of the directory and file names from the
>| instructions. Although I can't see why it would make a difference, I always
>| start with exactly what an install recommends and then deviate once it's
>| working.
>
>Before actually reading the source, I chose to name the source perl file
>"popauth" in /etc/postfix/. This presented a
>conflict in the code because the program would try to overwrite itself
>with each IP list update. Since I had to go in
>and make changes anyway, I conformed the remaining file names with the
>conventions used elsewhere on my mail system.

Since it's an executable, I'd recommend somewhere like /usr/local/bin or
/usr/local/popauth/bin or somewhere like that. /etc/xxx is intended to be
config files.

>For example, I have no /var/adm/ directory, and "popauther" didn't seem
>obvious enough (to me) that it was a fifo file for popauth.

I'm not suggesting that you leave it that way forever. Start with exactly
what an installation recommends and it works, then you start changing one
thing at a time so when something breaks, you know exactly which change
broke it.

I didn't have a /var/adm directory either. I created one. Its permissions
should be 755.

>No information is being sent to the
>popauth.fifo file, so popauth just sleeps with nothing to do. It is my
>guess that the hang up is with syslog.

I'm sure it is, but you can test it as follows.

Create a file that has a line (or two lines, in your case) exactly like
you'd find in the log file. cat that file to the fifo. (cat
samplefile >/var/log/popauth.fifo) and see if it works. The IP address
should end up in the popauth file (or whatever you called it) in the
postfix directory. If that works, I guarantee it's syslog that's your
problem. (Just tried that here and it works fine - I mean, as a way of
verifying which half of this that your problem is in... although my money
is on the fact that syslog won't recognize the fifo)

I suppose it could be a permissions issue on the directory containing the
fifo... another reason to have it in its own directory - you can muck with
the permissions and not affect the rest of logging...

What Linux version are you running?

>I've briefly read the syslogd man pages and I can't find
>any reason why it shouldn't find the fifo file on
>initialization. Consequently, I'm frustrated with it as I still don't
>have POP-before-SMTP working, even though your solution seems simple
>enough. Thanks again for your help. If I can
>provide any further information, or experimentation results, to
>troubleshoot this, please ask.

Hope that helps...

Regards,

Mac

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