TNPI - mail isn't coming in

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Mail isn't coming in. Where do I start?

By default, the Mail::Toaster comes with lots of handy anti-spam and virus features build in. While this is all great for keeping your inbox clean, it can make troubleshooting more problematic. We actually suggest not enabling any spam or virus filtering until after your mail server is working.

Is your DNS set up correctly?

Email is heavily sensitive to proper DNS. Make sure MX records exist for your domain and that they point to your Mail::Toaster. You can test this with a simple query like this:

dig mx example.com.

If you have multiple DNS servers, and you should, then ask each DNS server what it says the MX record is for your domain, and verify that they are all up to date:

dig mx example.com. @ns1.example.com.
dig mx example.com. @ns2.example.com.

Do you have a firewall in place?

If mail isn't arriving in your mailbox, first forge a message to your smtp server (see the spam myself FAQ entry). If you get back a normal response, it's time to check your mail logs (/var/log/mail/send) and see what happened to the message.

If you get an error back, then you'll have to act based on what that error message is. I suggested first step is disabling any content scanners. You can easily do that by editing toaster-watcher.conf and setting smtpd_qmail_queue to /var/qmail/bin/qmail-queue

If it's a RBL related error, try disabling that RBL in toaster-watcher.conf. Don't forget to run toaster-watcher.pl after editing toaster-watcher.conf.

Last modified on 5/6/05.