Mail Log Files

[bartdaniels]

Hi Guys,

Quick question for yall. We are using Plesk 8.6 and are now finding that Qmail that is packaged with Plesk doesn't log anything. I mean there are no entries in /var/log/maillog nor in /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog.

Is this a known issue or do we have a misconfigured Server?

This is the same for all our Plesk 8.6 VE's for Linux.

Cheers
Bart

 

[breun]

No log entries sounds suspicous. /var/log/maillog is not used, at least not with Plesk on CentOS, but our /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog files certainly contain quite a number of entries. Note that Courier (for POP3 and IMAP) also logs to this file.

 

[bartdaniels]

Hi Breun,

Thanks for that, however we have just deployed a new CentOS 5.2 VE and this one still does not log to that file at all. No POP3 or IMAP entries.

Permissions on the /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog as follows:

-rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Dec 4 20:00 maillog
-rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Dec 5 04:05 maillog.processed
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 8 04:06 smtp_pendings.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 8 04:02 xferlog

Is there an option within Plesk we are missing and needs to be enabled?
Also our message log is the same, blank.

Cheers
Bart

 

[breun]

AFAIK there is no configuration in Plesk for this. It should just work. Have you checked /etc/syslog.conf? It should contain this for mail logging:

# Log all the mail messages in one place.
mail.* -/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog

 

[bartdaniels]

Hi,

Thanks again for the reply. Yeh that is in the /etc/syslog.conf. It must be something with the Template we are deploying. If i do a basic install of CentOS 5.2 and then install Plesk Manually the Mail logs fine.

Grr...just annoying.


Cheers
Bart

 

[bk4linux]

Check if syslog is running
# service syslog status

if it is running then check

#lsof -p`pidof syslogd`
It will show all the files associate with syslog and show path of maillog.

 

[bartdaniels]

Check if syslog is running
# service syslog status

if it is running then check

#lsof -p`pidof syslogd`
It will show all the files associate with syslog and show path of maillog.

Thanks bk4linux, i cannot beleive i over looked that. However on our system it is 'rsyslog'. Once started all is logging fine now.

Thanks for that.

 

[KrazyBob]

On my Plesk 8.6 ez-template installation of CentOS 5 on Virtuozzo I have it as rsyslogd and it was stopped. Running service rsyslogd start began logging mail again. But what a different command other than syslogd? Even restarting the VE didn't solve this.

 

[trialotto]

Empty maillog

Other causes can be present for the maillog to be empty. A list of causes and resolution thereof.

Remark: the list is validated for a Plesk 9.2.2 / OpenSuse 11.1 install.

Note: should also apply for previous versions of Plesk
Note: in other distributions of linux: replace <syslog-ng> by the corresponding syslog program/names. You can find information (name/pid etc) about the corresponding syslog program with the command: ps aux | grep syslog*

A - syslog-ng.conf not proper

Cause: The configuration file does not contain a line for combined output of maillogs into the file /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog.

Solution:
1) Find the lines containing the mail logs in /etc/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.conf and change to:

# Mail-messages in separate files:
#
destination mailinfo { file("/var/log/mail.info"); };
log { source(src); filter(f_mailinfo); destination(mailinfo); };

destination mailwarn { file("/var/log/mail.warn"); };
log { source(src); filter(f_mailwarn); destination(mailwarn); };

destination mailerr { file("/var/log/mail.err" fsync(yes)); };
log { source(src); filter(f_mailerr); destination(mailerr); };

#
# and also all in one file:
#
destination mail { file("/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog"); };
log { source(src); filter(f_mail); destination(mail); };

NOTE: you can leave the first lines out, if you want to prevent double logging

2) restart service with command: service syslog restart

B - AppArmor installed

In a lot of linux installs, AppArmor is activated. That should not be a problem.

Cause: AppArmor profile for /sbin/syslog-ng is not properly configured

Solution:
1) go to /etc/apparmor.d
2) open sbin.syslog-ng (use command: vi sbin.syslog-ng)
3) change the line
@{CHROOT_BASE} = ,
to
@{CHROOT_BASE} = /,
and save
4) restart apparmor with the command: rcapparmor restart

Everything should be fine now and (after some seconds) your file /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog is filled

 

[HenriqueS]

For problems with QMail logging on Plesk running on CentOS:

Check owner and gowner of maillog, must belong to root (like maillog.processed.gz);
Restart QMail ou plesk service with /etc/init.d/psa stop and /etc/init.d/psa start;
Check if QMail starts logging;
If not, check /etc/rsyslog.conf for the following entry:

# Log all the mail messages in one place.
mail.* -/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog

Restart rsyslog (/etc/init.d/rsyslog stop and start) and restart QMail or plesk.

QMail will start logging.

This normally happens when maillog file is changed or deleted by anyone else than the service itself.