Forwarding local mail to external mail account?

[Matthias Brennwald]

On May 24, 2010, at 12:11 AM, ubuntu-users-request at lists.ubuntu.com wrote:

> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 22:31:23 +0100
> From: Brian <ad44 at cityscape.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: Forwarding local mail to external mail account?
> To: ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <20100523213123.GK860 at desktop>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> On Sun 23 May 2010 at 22:59:13 +0200, Matthias Brennwald wrote:
> 
>> How can I tell? What is MX?
> 
> The command 'less /var/log/exim4/mainlog' could help.

Here you go:
-----------------------
2010-05-24 08:41:01 1OGRLR-0004Ci-1h <= www-data at wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch U=www-data P=local S=1227
2010-05-24 08:41:01 1OGRLR-0004Ci-1h => www-data <www-data at wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch> R=local_user T=mail_spool
2010-05-24 08:41:01 1OGRLR-0004Ci-1h Completed
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H2-EW <= brennmat at wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch U=brennmat P=local S=575 id=20100524064931.GA16413 at wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H2-EW == matthias.brennwald at eawag.ch R=smarthost defer (-36): host lookup for mail.wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch did not complete (DNS timeout?)
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H2-EW ** matthias.brennwald at eawag.ch: retry timeout exceeded
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H4-J1 <= <> R=1OGRTf-0004H2-EW U=Debian-exim P=local S=1505
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H4-J1 == matthias.brennwald at eawag.ch <brennmat at wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch> R=smarthost defer (-36): host lookup for mail.wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch did not complete (DNS timeout?)
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H2-EW Completed
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H4-J1 => brennmat <brennmat at wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch> R=local_user T=mail_spool
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H4-J1 ** matthias.brennwald at eawag.ch <brennmat at wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch>: retry timeout exceeded
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H4-J1 matthias.brennwald at eawag.ch <brennmat at wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch>: error ignored
2010-05-24 08:49:31 1OGRTf-0004H4-J1 Completed
-----------------------

I don't know why it is trying to talk to mail.wut-ui.eawag.wroot.emp-eaw.ch. I don't think this exists at all (wut-ui is "my" machine, but I cannot recall that I configured anything like mail.wut-ui).

>> How can I tell?
> 
>> From reconfiguring exim4 you should know how you are sending
> mail to non-local hosts. Why do you think you need a .forward
> file?

Local system mail mail (root) is sent to my user account. I read somewhere that root/system mail cannot be sent to external accounts.

Matthias


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Matthias Brennwald, Käferholzstrasse 173, CH-8046 Zürich, +41 44 364 17 03