forward mail.

[Jeffrey F. Goldsmith]

I have HP-UX 11.0 and at one point I was having mail forwarded to my computer but it hasn't worked for a couple of months. It's not that I haven't noticed that I wasn't getting any mail but we just haven't been using this server until this past month.
Now everyone wants to know why they aren't getting any mail.

I have checked their file - /usr/mail
and put their e-mail address into their file-
- Foward to user@address

I also want root to foward all of it's mail to my computer so I went to /home/root and vi the .forward file and put my e-mail into the file.

When I send a mail message to root, it doesn't show up at my computer. What could I be doing wrong?

Thanks for any help you can give.

[Michael Tully]

Hi Jeff,

Make sure that none of the directories in
the filesystem have directory permissions
of 777. They must bet set to 755 or higher.

e.g.


HTH
-Michael

[Joseph C. Denman]

Things you might check:

make sure sendmail is running

check /var/adm/syslog/mail.log file for errors

Can you send mail out from the command line???


...jcd...

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Hi,

Check /var/adm/syslog/mail.log for possible problem.

If sendmail is not running start it by /sbin/init.d/sendmail start

Make sure that home directory for root is /home/root

If sendmail is running and configured correctly then .forward file should forward all the mails, but mail.log give you more clear picture about what's happening..
-Goodluck,
-USA..

[Jeffrey F. Goldsmith]

I went to /var/adm/syslog/mail.log and found this message at the end of the log. Is this any help?

Dec 12 12:56:06 diomede sendmail[2134]: MAA02134: MAB02134: return to sender: Ho
st unknown (Name server: co.fairbanks.ak.us: host not found)
Dec 12 12:56:06 diomede sendmail[2134]: MAB02134: to=ssmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us,j
goldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=smtp, rela
y=co.fairbanks.ak.us, stat=Host unknown (Name server: co.fairbanks.ak.us: host n
ot found)

[Rob Galloway_1]

first check to see if sendmail is running
'ps -ef | grep sendmail'
Then test to see if it can send mail to you using

/usr/sbin/sendmail -v your.email@your.domain
Test
Message
^D

This will give you a verbose output which will indicate where problems lie if there are any.

[Rob Galloway_1]

Check to ensure resolv.conf , nsswitch.conf and /etc/hosts are all configured correctly to allow hostname resolution.

[Michael Tully]

Sounds like the system cannot see your
mail server from DNS. Suggest you
compare the DNS and sendmail setup to
another system.

/etc/resolv/conf
/etc/nsswitch.conf
/etc/mail/sendmail.cw

[Jeffrey F. Goldsmith]

I couldn't find this file /etc/resolv/conf

I checked my other server and it had this file but the file is empty.

The following is what I get when I try to send mail to myself:

root: /etc ==> /usr/sbin/sendmail -v jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
Test
Message
jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us... Connecting to co.fairbanks.ak.us via smtp...
jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us... Host unknown (Name server: co.fairbanks.ak.us: host not found)
root... WARNING: writable directory /home/root
root... WARNING: writable directory /home/root
/home/root/.forward: line 1: forwarding to ssmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
/home/root/.forward: line 2: forwarding to jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
/home/root/dead.letter... cannot open: Permission denied
ssmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us,jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us... Host unknown (Name server: co.fairbanks.
ak.us: host not found)
MAILER-DAEMON... aliased to root
root... WARNING: writable directory /home/root
root... WARNING: writable directory /home/root
/home/root/.forward: line 1: forwarding to ssmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
/home/root/.forward: line 2: forwarding to jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
postmaster... aliased to root
root... WARNING: writable directory /home/root
root... WARNING: writable directory /home/root
/home/root/.forward: line 1: forwarding to ssmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
/home/root/.forward: line 2: forwarding to jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
ssmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us,jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us... Host unknown (Name server: co.fairbanks.
ak.us: host not found)
MAILER-DAEMON... aliased to root
root... WARNING: writable directory /home/root
root... WARNING: writable directory /home/root
/home/root/.forward: line 1: forwarding to ssmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
/home/root/.forward: line 2: forwarding to jgoldsmith@co.fairbanks.ak.us
MAILER-DAEMON... Saved message in /var/tmp/dead.letter

[Rob Galloway_1]

The file you are looking for is resolv.conf .
resolv/conf is a typo.