Forwarders sending e-mail to local folder, not to proper place

[n000b]

Hi,

A customer of mine has e-mailed me telling me his e-mail forwarder isn't working.

He has two e-mail forwards, webmaster@domain.com (forwarding to a local address) which is working, and admin@domain.com (forwarding to a remote address) which isn't working (there are also other remote forwards that *are* working fine on this account)

When an e-mail is sent to webmaster@domain.com, this appears in our Exim log files:

2008-08-04 16:31:23 1KPtbB-0002xm-5i H=outbound.icp-qv1-irony-out2.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.107] Warning: "SpamAssassin as newca56 detected message as NOT spam (-1.0)"
2008-08-04 16:31:27 1KPtbB-0002xm-5i <= email1@example.com H=outbound.icp-qv1-irony-out2.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.107] P=esmtp S=1730 id=4896A22D.4030201@estyles.com.au T="test2"
2008-08-04 16:31:27 cwd=/var/spool/exim 3 args: /usr/sbin/exim -Mc 1KPtbB-0002xm-5i
2008-08-04 16:31:30 1KPtbB-0002xm-5i => roy <email2@example.com> R=virtual_user T=virtual_userdelivery
2008-08-04 16:31:30 1KPtbB-0002xm-5i Completed

And the mail is delivered properly to the local inbox.

However, when an e-mail is sent to admin@domain.com, this is listed:

2008-08-04 16:56:42 1KPtzh-00044h-Sr H=outbound.icp-qv1-irony-out4.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.150] Warning: "SpamAssassin as newca56 detected message as NOT spam (0.0)"
2008-08-04 16:56:44 1KPtzh-00044h-Sr <= email1@example.com H=outbound.icp-qv1-irony-out4.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.150] P=esmtp S=1969 id=4896A81F.6030503@estyles.com.au T="test4"
2008-08-04 16:56:44 cwd=/var/spool/exim 3 args: /usr/sbin/exim -Mc 1KPtzh-00044h-Sr
2008-08-04 16:56:44 1KPtzh-00044h-Sr => /home/"username"/mail/someemail/ <email2@example.com> R=central_filter T=address_directory
2008-08-04 16:56:44 1KPtzh-00044h-Sr Completed


Sure enough, it's delivering the mail to a local folder in the users directory ("username" is the guys username on our server)

I've searched through mail configuration files etc and made sure it's all fine but it is still sending locally. Anyone know why this is happening?

Thanks!

[brianoz]

I can't see how it could be delivering to a folder unless that's set up as a forward, or setup somewhere else? This certainly aint default cpanel behaviour.

I don't think this is the answer to your issue but it may be worth mentioning that cpanel will deliver emails to a mailbox with the same name as a forward, as well as obeying the forward.

[n000b]

Can anyone tell where all the mail configuration files are that could contain settings relating to this, so I can check them?

[rpmws]

Can anyone tell where all the mail configuration files are that could contain settings relating to this, so I can check them?

/etc/valiases/domain.ext

[n000b]

The valiases file for this users domain just has this in it:
<deleted>

[morefood2001]

I have been running cpanel Current now for the past 4 months. A customer came to me recently complaining that his email forwarder is working touchy at best.

In cpanel's mail forwarder manager, I have a@domaina.com forwarding to b@hotmail.com. domaina.com is hosted on this server. Email works fine when I send a message from yahoo to a@domaina.com.

However when i run a php script with the mail() function and send it to anything outside of the server's domain list (like to hotmail, yahoo, etc), either through that forwarder or directly, the mail is shown to be relayed, but it never actually arrives at the destination.

A little further, I tried on another cpanel server and it worked fine, so I changed cpanel to the release tree and forced an upgrade. I still have the same results.

Do you have any idea what is causing my system to not forward emails generated via php's mail function to external domains not hosted on my server? Is there a way to force a complete uninstall and reinstall of exim without losing data?

EDIT:
I figured out the problem, its with junk mail. Is there any way to make the forwarder make messages less likely to look like junk to a provider like hotmail?

[rpmws]

I have been running cpanel Current now for the past 4 months. A customer came to me recently complaining that his email forwarder is working touchy at best.

In cpanel's mail forwarder manager, I have a@domaina.com forwarding to b@hotmail.com. domaina.com is hosted on this server. Email works fine when I send a message from yahoo to a@domaina.com.

However when i run a php script with the mail() function and send it to anything outside of the server's domain list (like to hotmail, yahoo, etc), either through that forwarder or directly, the mail is shown to be relayed, but it never actually arrives at the destination.

A little further, I tried on another cpanel server and it worked fine, so I changed cpanel to the release tree and forced an upgrade. I still have the same results.

Do you have any idea what is causing my system to not forward emails generated via php's mail function to external domains not hosted on my server? Is there a way to force a complete uninstall and reinstall of exim without losing data?

EDIT:
I figured out the problem, its with junk mail. Is there any way to make the forwarder make messages less likely to look like junk to a provider like hotmail?

in the future when you have issues like this you can use tail -f on the /var/log/exim_mainlog and watch and see what happens to the email when you test sending to the address. You can then pick out the email ID and grep the log for that ID and see the whole history on that email, where it went and what the remote server said.

[FreedomBI]

Mail delivery to hotmail is always questionable at best. They seem to have a tendency to accept and delete "junk mail" without notice, making it difficult to figure out what's going on.

[morefood2001]

How exactly do I get a detailed history on a mail id? I have tried the logs, and it always says the email was accepted correctly.

I have turned off filtering entirely to hotmail, and now it seems that all the email I should be getting is finally coming in. I think that I need to contact hotmail support.

I should have never turned on auto delete obvious junk, since all my legitimate email goes to junk, while the junk goes to my inbox. :/