I am using exim 3.32, Debian woody/testing.
I have been using exim and fetchmail for about six months on a mostly
single user machine with a dial-up connection. For some reason, about
ten days ago, I stopped being able to send out mail. After trying to
understand the problem, reading the FAQ, mailing list archives and other
documentaion, I posted to the list, and Phil Pennock gave me a great
deal of help in diagnosing the problem, though the problem remains
unsolved.
Summary of the problem:
1.) People tell me they are not receiving the e-mails I sent
2.) I check the /var/log/exim/mainlog and see that the "Spool file is
locked (another process is handling this message)" and then that the
connection to the remote mailhost is timed out.
3.) Eventually (Phil's help), I discover that there are many messages in
the queue which I have never generated (knowingly)- they are
commercial html mails about teeth whitening, which don't show
up in the log because they have been in the queue for too long. I
manually remove these message with -Mrm, to the point where exim -bpc
shows an empty queue
4.) From /var/spool/exim/db, I rm the retry, retry.lockfile,
wait-remote-smtp and wait-remore-smtp.lockfile. I reboot and expect
the problem to be solved.
5.) I send a test message to myself at the account (panix.com) where
this post is originating from, and it goes undelivered, again with
message about "Spool file is locked (another process is handling this
message)".
6.) Following Phil's suggestion, I try to debug using exim -d9 -M
<message id>, and I can follow my message either into "Spool file is
locked" or into "connecting to mailhost.panix.com" where the process
just hangs until I kill it (sometimes this command brings to Spool
file is locked and sometimes into connection with the remote machine)
Output available if it is of any help.
7.) I notice in /var/spool/exim/input that there are the two files which
seem to be the body and the headers of my test message (both dated May
4) and there is also an empty file, from April 30, four days earlier,
and prior to my having emptied the queue. Is this a system file? or
something wich should not be there? There is no *-H file to accompany
it. All other message files seem to be in *-D and *-H pairs.
/var/spool/exim/input:
drwxr-x--- 2 mail mail 8192 May 5 22:09 .
drwxr-x--- 5 mail mail 4096 May 5 19:28 ..
-rw------- 1 mail mail 0 Apr 30 02:50 172RSn-00005L-00-D
-rw------- 1 mail mail 24 May 3 22:23 173pDK-0000WV-00-D
-rw------- 1 mail mail 729 May 4 22:38 173pDK-0000WV-00-H
8.) One or two days pass by while I try to figure this out, when all of
a sudden there are 83 new junk mail message in the queue. If I try to
check out with -Mvh where they are coming from, I get, for example:
sanmarco:# exim -Mvh 173w7f-0001KG-00
173w7f-0001KG-00-H
mail 8 8
<>
1020505595 0
-ident mail
-received_protocol local
-body_linecount 76
-localerror
XX
1
atigzgk@???
147P Received: from mail by localhost with local (Exim 3.32 #1 (Debian))
id 173w7f-0001KG-00
for <atigzgk@???>; Sat, 04 May 2002 05:46:35 -0400
068 X-Failed-Recipients: 395=217.10.172.50=65.90.116.84=@[65.90.116.84]
052F From: Mail Delivery System <Mailer-Daemon@sanmarco>
If instead, I try -Mvh on my own test message, I get
sanmarco:# exim -Mvh 173pDK-0000WV-00
173pDK-0000WV-00-H
tomasz 1001 1001
<mickle@???>
1020479038 1
-ident tomasz
-received_protocol local
-body_linecount 1
-auth_id tomasz
-auth_sender tomasz@sanmarco
-local
XX
1
mickle@???
147P Received: from tomasz by localhost with local (Exim 3.32 #1
(Debian))
id 173pDK-0000WV-00
for <mickle@???>; Fri, 03 May 2002 22:23:58 -0400
021T To: mickle@???
014 Subject: test
029F From: Tomasz Kosinski <mickle@???>
It appears that the first (the junk) is generated by a user or group named
"mail", how, I don't understand, but...
The "From" header of the junk mail is my localhost name (not a fqdn), so
would that mean that most mail servers would not accept the mail?
In checking the ml archives I see that there has been discussion about
wrong permissions and owners, so I check to see that mine are as they
should be.
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Oct 15 2001 spool
drwxr-x--- 5 mail mail 4096 May 5 19:28 exim
drwxr-x--- 2 mail mail 4096 May 3 22:43 db
-rw-r----- 1 mail mail 0 May 3 22:23 *
Finally, thinking that maybe my mail is being blocked because of the
junk that is originating from here, I set up a test account with mozilla
and try to send a test message to myself (at the remote machine -
panix.com) using the same smtp mailhost, and the message gets through
fine. Also, exim is able to deliver messages locally - from one user to
another, and I receive incoming mail.
This problem is beyond me - I am an end-user, at the moment in over his
head, and I will be very grateful for any help.
Tomasz
