QMail deferral 4.1.2 on EVERY e-mail

[MikkyX]

Hi,
I had some problems with spam so I fixed up my mail queue and restarted qmail. Now every message in the queue is refusing to send. Below is an excerpt frmo the maillog which shows it can't find ANY hosts - even big ones like AOL and Hotmail.

Mail sent to domains on the Plesk server works fine - it's just outgoing that isn't.

Feb 22 11:38:08 kratos qmail: 1140608288.545614 starting delivery 8: msg 6684888 to remote <ADDRESS>@aol.com
Feb 22 11:38:08 kratos qmail: 1140608288.545678 status: local 0/10 remote 1/20
Feb 22 11:38:08 kratos qmail: 1140608288.546343 starting delivery 9: msg 6684891 to remote <ADDRESS>
Feb 22 11:38:08 kratos qmail: 1140608288.546388 status: local 0/10 remote 2/20
Feb 22 11:38:48 kratos qmail: 1140608328.553947 delivery 8: deferral: Sorry,_I_couldn't_find_any_host_by_that_name._(#4.1.2)/
Feb 22 11:38:48 kratos qmail: 1140608328.554003 status: local 0/10 remote 1/20
Feb 22 11:38:48 kratos qmail: 1140608328.554030 delivery 9: deferral: Sorry,_I_couldn't_find_any_host_by_that_name._(#4.1.2)/

How can I fix this? My mail queue grows ever larger.

 

[MikkyX]

Just wanted to add I tried running "dig mx aol.com" and it said it couldn't connect - "connection timed out; no servers could be reached"

 

[phoenixisp]

How exactly did you "fix" the queue? What OS are you using?

 

[MikkyX]

Originally posted by phoenixisp
How exactly did you "fix" the queue? What OS are you using?

It's Fedora Core 2 - and I did it by re-installing QMail as per the instructions in the SWSoft Knowledge Base article located here:
http://kb.swsoft.com/article_22_252_en.html

 

[phoenixisp]

Are you using Watchdog? It's been known to cause this problem.

 

[MikkyX]

Originally posted by phoenixisp
Are you using Watchdog? It's been known to cause this problem.

I have Watchdog enabled, yes - you'd recommend turning it off from the sound of things? Seems an odd thing for it to do though, interfering with the mail.....

 

[phoenixisp]

Run a search, you'll find Watchdog is a dog.

 

[MikkyX]

Watchdog has been disabled - and qmail restarted (it had silently stopped running!) - the mail queue is pushing through to local addresses but outside mail is still failing with the same problem - what other steps can I try?

 

[MikkyX]

Think I've got a bigger problem than just qmail - my whole box can't see the internet. I can't ping known hostnames (e.g. Google) or anything! What's gone wrong?

 

[phoenixisp]

I would suggest looking at some logs - the first one being /var/log/messages. Also, is there a firewall blocking access to the internet?

 

[MikkyX]

Originally posted by phoenixisp
I would suggest looking at some logs - the first one being /var/log/messages. Also, is there a firewall blocking access to the internet?

There's a firewall on the box but I've not touched the rulesets for a long time - this all seems to have started when I followed the KB instructions for reinstalling qmail and wiping the queue.

 

[ronfar]

Is your DNS server running? Have you also tried just pinging an IP address (instead of a domain name)? Does that work or not?

 

[MikkyX]

Originally posted by ronfar
Is your DNS server running? Have you also tried just pinging an IP address (instead of a domain name)? Does that work or not?

Pinging IP addresses worked - so I looked in Plesk which showed the DNS Server was running. Ignoring this, I chose to restart it anyway - and it began to ping domains as well.

Buoyed by this I checked my maillog to see if the mail was going out. Connections are now being established to the mail relay server but they're dying as soon as they're opened. I'm calling GoDaddy to take it from here as I suspect it's their problem now.

Thank you both for all your help.

 

[MikkyX]

Well, I've spoken to GoDaddy - apparently the connection is dying because my server is blacklisted for being used as a spam relay. I was unaware this had happened again since I thought I had dealt with a spam problem a month and a half ago.

I've just checked and there doesn't seem to be any spam relaying through my server - all the messages I checked thinking they might be spam turned out to be bounces generated by my server as a result of people sending spam to ME. It's in GoDaddy's hands now.