root .forward not working
 

Pre-Panther I had set up root's .forward file so that mail to root would get sent to me (at my ISP IMPAP acct). Installing Panther removed the old .forward file and replaced it with one showing /dev/null.

I edited that to replace it with my e-mail address, but mail to root seems to still go to /dev/null

I know postfix is working because I can send mail to me. It's just that root's .forward file doesn't seem to work.

There's nothing for root in the mail queue.

send an email to root.

do you expect mail from root? the maintenance jobs? might need to review the periodic config file to see that it mails rather than logs.

Mail to root ends up in a black hole.

Mail to me (at my ISP) works fine.

Pre-Panther, all cron job stuff was mailed to root and forwarded to me at my ISP.

Post-Panther install mail to root was being delivered to me at my local account:

Anyway, after I saw the above I looked at root's .forward file and found that it had reverted back to /dev/null. I changed to it my ISP address, but no joy....

Now, mail to root goes nowhere.

Does postfix somehow ignore the .forward file and look somewhere else?

mail to root works here, a la postfix OSX 10.3.1

root .forward contains my username

is your ISP blocking relays? there should be a lot of entries in mail.log when postfix fires up.

perhaps postfix is bork'd ?

report:

sudo mailq

Here's a mail.log entry for when sendmail was properly forwarding mail addressed to root to me:

Notice that it addresses the mail to "mnewman@saipan.com"

Now, here's a mail log entry for when postfix fails to properly forward the mail:

Note that it addresses the mail not to "info@mgnewman.com" which is what is in root's .forward. Instead it is addressing the mail to root@mgnewman.com. No wonder it's not going anywhere because there is no mailbox for "root" at mgnewman.com.

It looks to me like I've somehow screwed up forwarding in postfix....

There is nothing recent in the mailq.

So, I created mail account called:

root@mgnewman.com

And, sure enough, that's where procmail is forwarding root's mail, even though:

So, how do I get procmail to forward mail to a real e-mail address instead of root@whateverdomain?

I'd declare an alias for root in /etc/aliases.

Then run newaliases

Sorry, still mails to root@mgnewman.com

One other oddity. I ran "repair permissions" just for yucks. This operation changed all of the postfix directories to be owned by root. For example:

So, postfix refused to start when I rebooted my machine. I went back and changed all these directories to be owned by postfix and then I could start postfix. I wonder if this is going to happen every time I repair permissions?

If so, it seems like Apple hasn't much thought through this postfix implementation.

Try running postfix in verbose mode to see if there are any errors. Maybe it is not reading the aliases db due to permissions or some such thing (although I would expect that to come out in the normal logs)
Something must be causing the rewrite to root @ your forwarded machine.....

As well, I do not use a .forward for root at all, I just have this line set in the /etc/aliases:Although it is not redirecting to another machine, it is getting to me locally.

stetner,

Thank you. Verbose logging revealed that I had improperly set (and misunderstood) the myorigin parameter. Once I fixed that mail to root works OK.

Thanks again.

pilot error!

To be expected, I hope, in the "Newcomers" forum. I'm here to learn, and I am!

That's all right, I fought with a configuration issue for half a day before I finally turned on verbose logging and realised that there was a line at the bottom of a config file that was undoing what I was trying to do :rolleyes:

We've all been there!

Glad you got it running properly.

Breen

Unfortunately, I'm still having problem.

I know that all the directories in:

are supposed to be owned by user postfix.

But, for some reason, they keep getting changed to be owned by user 27, which is not a valid UID on my system.

If I go back and chown everything to postfix, it all works until "Repair Permissions" screws things up again:

So, should I change the UID for postfix to be 27, or is there some way I can fix "Repair Permissions" so that it doesn't mess things up every night....

And, what should the group be (and GID) for this set of directories?

The postfix UID is supposed to be 27. I would go into netinfo manager and correct it. After that, you could dowhich will change all the files from the old UID of 255 to 27. For what it is worth, here is what my dir looks like:You should also have the postdrop group at GID 28 and the postfix group as GID 27.

I tried to use "find" as described above to change the ownership, but I get this:

So, I tried a recursive chown:

and that seemed to have worked.

At least postfix is up and running again.

For now....

the reason the chown failed is because the sudo only applied to the find command. xargs was run as your login account. the solution would be a sudo xargs after the pipe char |

Sorry, I forgot to say do a 'sudo -s' first :(

I really tend to avoid recursive chown/chgrp/chmods unless I am totally sure what is down the tree....

On my system the pid files are all owned by root. There may be a security reason for this (or my system could be messed up :) Anyone have a clean install to check this?)

I checked another system. pid and all of the files in pid are owned by root. I've now fixed that. Postfix is still running....

Thanks for your help.

I learned a lot.

check
 

Same, same here.

Thanks.

You know, I really appreciate the help I've gotten in these forums over the past few years.

I'm old (55) and don't learn new tricks very well. And, I don't have time to spend hours at the unix command line. But, I do enjoy learning and I do have a few command line tasks that I need to do now and then. And, living on a small island I don't really have anywhere to go for help.

So, the assistance I've received from folks like you all is sincerely and ernestly appreciated.

Mike

Glad we can help Mike! Hey, someone once told me that 'old' people are people who are more than 15 years older than you are, so since I am 42, you are not old! :D

Just had a look at your web page Mike, quite comprehensive!

Saipan looks pretty good, very similar to a lot of tropical countries. I currently live on a big island ;) to the south (I am a dual citizen now, Canadian-Australian), but have visited many of the countries around here (including Chuuk) as I am an avid scuba diver and I love all the WWII wrecks in the south pacific.

I love getting away to some of those places, but I can see how some people go stir crazy after a while.

Anyway, if you ever need a hand, just pay my airfare and I will come up and help you with any Mac problems (between dives that is)! :)

Stetner,

Tried to send this to your private box, but it's full....

=====

I may have mentioned this before, but we have friends who live in Brisbane (Ascot, not far from Eagle Farm) whom we visit every other year or so. Next time we're down we'll have to have a beer or coffee somewhere. Maybe even a dive?

Thanks again,

Mike