[Bug 520273] [NEW] cron doesn't send mail

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Binary package hint: cron

I have this as a test script called test_cron
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#! /bin/bash
#

#if ! type promptYesNo > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then .
/home/woodnt/scripts/misc.sh ; fi

FILE=/tmp/cron.log
TIME=`date -d now "+%m-%d-%y@%H%M%S"`
if [ ! -f $FILE ] ; then
	touch $FILE
fi

echo "Hello at $TIME from test_cron" |tee -a $FILE
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>From the last line, one can see that that there is output.

It is trying to send mail as can be seen here:
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root     29138  0.0  0.0  18708   988 ?        Ss   23:00   0:00 cron
root     29166  0.0  0.0  91236  2192 ?        S    23:01   0:00  \_ CRON
root     29167  0.0  0.0  91244  1300 ?        S    23:01   0:00  |   \_ CRON
woodnt   29168  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Zs   23:01   0:00  |       \_ [sh] <defunct>
woodnt   29193  0.0  0.0  37000  2100 ?        S    23:01   0:00  |       \_ /usr/sbin/sendmail -i -FCronDaemon -oem woodnt
woodnt   29194  0.0  0.0  36988  2096 ?        S    23:01   0:00  |           \_ /usr/sbin/postdrop -r
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$ mail
No mail for woodnt
woodnt at toshiba-laptop /var/mail $

I have looked in /var/mail and it shows bupkis

woodnt at toshiba-laptop /var/mail $ sudo cat *
[sudo] password for woodnt: 
woodnt at toshiba-laptop /var/mail $

checking out /var/log/mail.log shows nothing being sent from cron.
mail.err is empty. No evidence of cron sending anything in mail.info
either.

This works:

woodnt at toshiba-laptop /var/log $ echo hello|/usr/sbin/sendmail -i -FCronDaemon -oem woodnt
woodnt at toshiba-laptop /var/log $ mail
Mail version 8.1.2 01/15/2001.  Type ? for help.
"/var/mail/woodnt": 1 message 1 new
>N  1 woodnt at toshiba-la  Wed Feb 10 23:10   13/437   
&

So somewhere between cron sending the mail and it going through postfix
something is going wrong.

I have bsd-mailx installed which of course also installs postfix as a
depends.

I can't duplicate this problem on other systems.

Of note, I had installed ssmtp first for another reason, but uninstalled
thinking it might have been the problem. A purge uninstall then
reinstall of bsd-mailx didn't fix this. I am not sure if the culprit is
ssmtp configuring something and not undoing it on purge or if the fault
is in cron.

Thanks,
Narnie

** Affects: postfix (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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cron doesn't send mail
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/bugs/520273
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