Enabling mail program

[Brian McKee]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 1:05 PM, Michael Satterwhite<michael at weblore.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 01 September 2009 11:32:43 am Rashkae wrote:
>> Michael Satterwhite wrote:
>> > I installed mailutils to enable command line email for scripts on my
>> > system. As a test, I ran
>> >
>> > mail -s "Test Message" michael at weblore.com < /dev/null
>> >
>> > It seemed to run without error, but I never received the test message.
>> > Obviously, I need to do something else to get the mail program working.
>> > Would someone be so kind as to let me in on the magic that I'm missing?

>> Mail would have handed the message to sendmail (which is probably
>> provided by either postfix or exim on your system).. check which MTA you
>> have installed and examine its log. There should also be a mailq
>> program that will let you check if the message is still sitting in queue.
>
> I don't know why I forget to look at logs. Regardless: I have sendmail on my
> system. I don't see a logfile for it in /var/log. There are files for mail,
> but they're empty.
>
> Reconfiguring sendmail sounds reasonable. I'm pretty sure Comcast blocks
> port 25. Could you point me to something on the sendmail configuration?
> Also, where would the sendmail logfiles be?

When you say you have sendmail - do you mean the actual sendmail MTA ?
or the fake sendmail equivalents that all the other MTAs supply for
compatibility?

I usually install postfix, and if you install it using aptitude it
will step you thru a simple wizard that should get it up and running
for you.

Sendmail config files are in an odd macro language you had to
'compile' from the last time I dealt with it.  Unless you are a
glutton for punishment or have a specific requirement, I would think
sendmail would be a last resort...

Brian