[TriLUG] More Email Problems: Postfix/Procmail Errors

[Joseph Tate]

Joshua Gitlin wrote:

> Sorry to keep bugging you guys with the questions...
> 
> I'm having another email issue, this time on a fresh install of Mandrake 
> 10 on an older Dell box. Every now and then, certan emails don't get 
> through to me. I can't tell why, or what causes it, but certain emails 
> bounce, and the bounce message read:
> 
> <jnet at localhost.tumaz.com>: can't create user output file. Command output:
>     procmail: Error while writing to "/var/spool/mail/jnet"
> Reporting-MTA: dns; mail.tumaz.com
> Arrival-Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 17:59:34 -0400 (EDT)
> 
> Final-Recipient: rfc822; jnet at localhost.tumaz.com
> Action: failed
> Status: 5.0.0
> Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; can't create user output file. Command output:
>     procmail: Error while writing to "/var/spool/mail/jnet"
> 
> 
> jnet is my user, /var/spool/mail/jnet exists and is writable. I have not 
> been able to find any sort of errors in /var/log/mail.info nor 
> /var/log.messages... I don't know what's causing procmail to fail... 
> anyone have any ideas?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Josh
> 

Postfix generally is installed by default to run in a chroot 
environment.  Thus it may be looking for a different file that doesn't 
exist if postfix is configured to do local delivery, i.e. not 
/var/spool/mail/jnet , but $CHROOT/var/spool/mail/jnet.  That's why by 
default on RHL, postfix uses procmail for delivery.  Investigate along 
these lines:

Switch postfix to not run chrooted in master.cf.  If mail delivery 
works, investigate using procmail to act as the Local Delivery Agent (LDA).

Joseph