poboxverysmall.org
Date: Sun Apr 01 2007 - 07:49:46 CDT

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mouss wrote:
> poboxverysmall.org wrote:
>> mouss wrote:
>>> poboxverysmall.org wrote:
>>>> Michael Wang wrote:
>>>>> poboxverysmall.org wrote:
>>>>>> hello,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> yesterday all mail sent from my workstation (tried Thunderbird and
>>>>>> Outlook Express) seemed sent as usual, but did not arrive at the
>>>>>> recipient. mail sent from Squirrelmail and another application on
>>>>>> the server - did arrive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> the mail that did not arrive could not be found in any queue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> today everything work, as it has been working for the past months
>>>>>> (no changes have been done to the mail server in the past days).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> could somebody give me a hint what it might be.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> thanks,
>>>>>> iv
>>>>>
>>>>> What did the logs say?
>>>>
>>>> The mail activity goes into /var/log/maillog, but I could not find
>>>> any entries about the lost mail there.
>>>>
>>>
>>> then the MUAs used another MTA or they queued the messages for later.
>>> postfix logs all transactions.
>>
>> Could you give me a tip how to debug this process, where are the
>> points to check/monitor, except the maillog and queue (the mail server
>> is Postfix and Cyrus)?
>>
>> The account is IMAP, do not know if this helps.
>>
>> What is 'sure' is that -
>>
>> - the MUA setting (SMTP domain) hasn't been changed
>> - the SMTP domain itself hasn't been changed
>> - the mail server configuration hasn't been changed
>> - the problem seemed to appear and disappear on its own (nothing was
>> done to fix it - one day it did not work, the next it worked)
>> - the MUA (both Thunderbird and Outlook Express) reported 'mail sent'
>> - the lost mail could not be found in any queue
>
> unfortunately, if you can't reproduce the problem, it'll be hard to find
> out...

That's true. That's why I asked for help here. I am not very good, but
if it is reproducible, I read and try and eventually find out. It was
reproducible on that day, but I did not advance enough with the
debugging then.

> if you are "lucky", the mail was delivered to a mailbox instead of to
> cyrus. look in /var/mail/ (or whatever is the default delivery directory
> for your MTA).

No, it was intended to recipients outside of the mail server.

> other possibilities:
> - at some moment, DNS returned another IP as the MTA. the MUA then sent
> to that MTA

Yes, somebody else mentioned the same possibility. But how is that
possible, it sounds scary...

> - some firewall rule redirect smtp packets to another MTA

Hm... can this happen 'out of the blue' and fix itself...

Hm... mystery.

Anyway, thank you for your time and possible reasons. Will help me to
advance more next time.

Iv

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