Cannot send form email client

Hi

I have just moved some virtual servers from one server to another, on the old server they could send email fine but on the new one they cannot. They are as far as I can tell set up identically.

When they try to connect to send I get the following error in mail.log

warning: SASL authentication failure: cannot connect to saslauthd server: No such file or directory

I have checked saslauthd is running and have restarted it serveral times and also restarted postifx

on this server when I run

ps auxw | grep saslauthd

I only get

root 3529 0.0 0.0 3116 708 pts/0 R<+ 09:45 0:00 grep saslauthd

On the old server I get

root 4493 0.0 0.0 7800 1440 ? Ss Sep04 0:51 /usr/sbin/saslauthd -a pam -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r -n 5 root 4515 0.0 0.0 7804 1424 ? S Sep04 1:01 /usr/sbin/saslauthd -a pam -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r -n 5 root 4517 0.0 0.0 7804 1424 ? S Sep04 0:49 /usr/sbin/saslauthd -a pam -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r -n 5 root 4518 0.0 0.0 7804 1424 ? S Sep04 0:51 /usr/sbin/saslauthd -a pam -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r -n 5 root 4519 0.0 0.0 7800 1424 ? S Sep04 0:53 /usr/sbin/saslauthd -a pam -m /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd -r -n 5 root 31331 0.0 0.0 3120 732 pts/0 R+ 09:45 0:00 grep saslauthd

This seems to be the problem but I cannot find how to fix it

Status: 
Closed (fixed)

Comments

Howdy -- what does your /etc/postfix/master.cf file look like? In particular, you'd want the smtps and submission blocks to be uncommented.

Hi

I have attached the file as a txt file, it looks the same as the server that is working.

What output do you receive if you run this command on your server:

ls -la /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd

When I run

ls -la /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd

I Get

total 8 drwx--x--- 2 root sasl 4096 2009-09-16 09:49 . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2009-06-16 12:27 ..

Hmm, that's unusual... there should be some files in that directory!

What happens when you restart saslauthd -- do you see any errors on the command line, or in the mail.log file?

Also, what are the contents of your "/etc/default/saslauthd" file?

Lastly, what do you get when typing:

grep sasl /etc/group

When I restart saslauthd I get no errors and there is nothing in the mail.log file

I have attached a txt version of the saslauthd file

Run grep sasl /etc/group Get sasl:x:45:postfix

Okay, that all looks good.

The next step I'd like to do is make a modification to your master.cf to see if that makes those files show up... can you edit this section, and remove the comments:

#submission inet n       -       -       -       -       smtpd
#  -o smtpd_tls_security_level=encrypt
#  -o smtpd_sasl_auth_enable=yes
#  -o smtpd_client_restrictions=permit_sasl_authenticated,reject
#  -o milter_macro_daemon_name=ORIGINATING
#smtps     inet  n       -       -       -       -       smtpd
#  -o smtpd_tls_wrappermode=yes
#  -o smtpd_sasl_auth_enable=yes
#  -o smtpd_client_restrictions=permit_sasl_authenticated,reject
#  -o milter_macro_daemon_name=ORIGINATING

After you uncomment those lines in your master.cf file, restart both Saslauthd and Postfix.

Does that correct the issues you're seeing?

I have removed the comments from the master.cf and restarted both saslauthd and postfix and still the same

ps auxw | grep saslauthd root 8599 0.0 0.0 3116 712 pts/1 R<+ 11:40 0:00 grep saslauthd

ls -la /var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd total 8 drwx--x--- 2 root sasl 4096 2009-09-16 09:49 . drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2009-06-16 12:27 ..

And still not working.

Appreciate your help.

Sorry, No errors on command line or in mail log when restarting either of saslauthd and postfix

Hmm, I'm not sure what's going on there, that's certainly not the behavior I'd expect to see. Would it be possible to log in and take a look?

If that's okay, you can enable remote support in the Virtualmin Support module, or just email the root login details to eric@virtualmin.com.

That will be great.

I have enabled remote support login

Port 22 doesn't seem to be responding -- are you by chance running SSH on an alternate port, or blocking it with a firewall?

Sorry, yes we run behind a firewall, if you email me your ip-address I will allow add it to the firewall so you can get access.

greg@cybernamixqld.com.au

Have you noticed anything else odd going on with your server?

One of the first things I noticed upon logging in is that the saslauthd daemon wasn't running... but when I went to launch it, it appears that the "/usr/sbin/saslauthd" binary is missing.

Running a "find", I'm not actually seeing that binary anywhere in /usr.

Unfortunately, it's getting a bit late on the east coast of the US, I don't think I'll be able to get this sorted out tonight... but we can pick this up tomorrow morning :-)

Everything else seems to be running fine.

Tomorrow is fine, I have done a some temp re-directions to keep clients happy today.

Let me know if I should do anything.

Many thanks for your support

Have a good night

Okay, give it a shot now.

I can't begin to explain how this happened, but the package providing saslauthd wasn't installed, or was otherwise corrupted.

To fix it, I installed it with "apt-get install sasl2-bin".

After that, all the files we'd expect to see in "/var/spool/postfix/var/run/saslauthd" now exist.

Let us know how that works. Thanks!

Hi Eric

All working perfectly, many thanks.

I also have no idea why it wasn't installed as I use the same procedure to install on all the servers and I have just checked and all the others have it.

Thanks again.

Yeah, something odd appears to have happened, I just don't know how exactly... saslauthd definitely was installed and running previously, as your "ps" output showed it there, and the /etc/default/saslauthd file existed.

However, I'm glad it's working now :-)

If you have any other questions, feel free to let us know.

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.