Re: [Exim] error 13 0: Permission denied

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Author: Phil Pennock
Date:  
To: Bruce Leo
CC: exim-users
Subject: Re: [Exim] error 13 0: Permission denied
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On 2002-01-17 at 18:02 +1100, Bruce Leo wrote:
> I am a new Exim user and after going through the archives I am
> still none the wiser as to how to resolve this problem. No email
> being sent from the Exim server is arriving at the address
> support@???. Apologies for the length of the email but
> I thought this may assist any diagnosis.


Absolutely correct.

> From what I can see there are 2 issues:
> Permission denied: failed to chdir to /root
>
> and
>
> retry timeout exceeded end of retry processing


And in this case, the relevant extracts are:
-----------------------------< cut here >-------------------------------
LOG: 0 MAIN
** support@??? R=lookuphost T=remote_smtp: retry time
not reached for any host after a long failure period
-----------------------------< cut here >-------------------------------
and:
-----------------------------< cut here >-------------------------------
delivering root@??? as root using local_delivery:
uid=99 gid=99 home=/root current=/root
auxiliary group list: <none>
search_tidyup called
local_delivery transport returned DEFER for
root@???
added retry item for T:root@???: errno=13 0
flags=0
post-process root@??? (1)
LOG: 0 MAIN
== root@??? T=local_delivery defer (13):
Permission denied: failed to chdir to /root
-----------------------------< cut here >-------------------------------

The second line in the second extract:
uid=99 gid=99 home=/root current=/root
says that the current working directory is /root but the uid is 99,
which presumably is that of the "exim" (or whatever) user. And then the
later errors just show that the permissions on /root don't allow uid 99
to chdir there.

Does "local_delivery" try to deliver into something like $HOME/.mail ?
If so, what does "exim -bP never_users" show? Really, it's a bad idea
to read mail as root or to start deliveries as that user. Perhaps add
an alias redirecting the mail to the administrator's normal account.
"never_users = root" is in the default Exim config.

If it's not that and it's just that Exim's delivery in test stuff is
trying to chdir to the current working directory of when Exim was
invoked, then try "cd /" and then run the test again. :^)


Retry timeouts -- the retry hints say that there's a problem. If you're
just testing, perhaps you should blow away the hints database. It's
always _safe_ to do that. Desirable? Depends upon how much mail you're
shifting and how many useful hints are stored up. :^)

# cd `exim -bP spool_directory|cut -d ' ' -f 3`/db
(or, commonly, "cd /var/spool/exim/db")
# rm retry*

If this makes you nervous (and Joe Random Stranger telling you to remove
files as root blinking well should make you nervous) then go read
sections 53.6 and 53.7 of The Exim Specification (doc/spec.txt or
available via <http://www.exim.org/>), and search the Exim FAQ for the
word "retry". For instance, Q0534 might be of interest. And Q0524.

HTH,
--
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why.
Then do it. -- Robert Heinlein
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