Re: [Exim] I can't use my new mail server to send mail but …

Hi Jonathan, on Mon, 05 Apr 2004 06:49:55 +0000 you wrote:

You didn't mention what version of Exim you're using. I'll assume it's
Exim 4. If it's not, upgrade, because Exim 3 is obsolete, lacks many
important features found in Exim 4, and most importantly nobody here seems
to remember much about it these days (it's over 2 years since Exim 4 was
released). There are Debian packages available; see archives.

> Could someone point me in the right direction as where to look in the
> "exim.conf" file in order to correct this problem?
> refused relay (host) to <goofball@???> from <someone@???>
> H=d47-69-211-93.try.wideopenwest.com (6-allhosts) [69.47.93.211]

OK, assuming this is a log of *you* trying to send a message, you need to
configure one of two things:

- a fixed IP address which is permitted to relay from, if you have one
(see "relay_from_hosts" in the config file)

or (more general)

- SMTP AUTH (which lets you allow relaying based on some kind of
authentication). You'll need to read the manual to learn a bit about the
background to this and options available.

You don't want Exim to just "let you" send mail through it without doing
one of the above, otherwise a spammer could also send mail through it.

> I'm also seeing "frozen messages" whenever I perform a "runq" on the
> server, what does that mean and how can I "un-freeze" them or at least
> figure out why they're getting "frozen".

Exim's logging is very comprehensive and the answer to "why..." is almost
always clear if you check the logs. Look for these items and it will tell
you why they were frozen. There's a good chance that unfreezing them
won't help - if they're bounce messages, it probably means they were
forged spam (in which case trying to prevent the mail getting in in the
first place would be considered to be a Good Thing - there is lots on this
list about SMTP-time rejection), or if they're messages for local
delivery, the fact they're frozen would indicate a configuration problem
which you probably need to fix before unfreezing them will do anything
useful.


Tim