Exim sender verify failed

[Brian Farkas]

Hi, we're experiencing an error where one user on our server is getting a 550 error message, unable to send out mail. It seems to be only affecting his domain, as it can be duplicated from multiple machines, but other domains can send out mail without problems.

The error we're seeing in /var/log/exim_mainlog is:
2003-09-08 13:11:25 H=(c481242a) [12.236.204.134] sender verify fail for <peter@mccorison.com>:
2003-09-08 13:11:25 H=(c481242a) [12.236.204.134] F=<peter@mccorison.com> rejected RCPT <brifarkas@comcast.net>: Sender verify failed

I searched this forum, but all other instances of the sender verify failed error seem to have an "unroutable domain" tagged onto the first line, while the error I'm seeing doesn't offer any further clarification. I can send mail to that address from other email addresses on the server.

So far we've tried restarting exim/antirelayd/cppop to no avail. The user is also checking his POP3 box before trying to send mail. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot!

Brian Farkas

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[ameen]

Having this problem also on a domain..

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[bmcpanel]

Yep, same exact problem on my servers. Exim makes my head want to explode. I just checked my help desk stats for last month. We have 15 categories of tickets that our customer choose when they create a support ticket. "Email Problem" tickets were 26.5% of our support requests. Seems a little out of balance, doesn't it?

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[ahwheelock]

We had this. It was due to improper permissions on your passwd and shadow files for the email.

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number:

[DevilBear]

Well what should the proper permissions be?

I'm having this problem and Exim seems to want the passwd files to be world-readable. Is this safe?

[chirpy]

If you run the option in WHM > Rebuild/Fix Mail Dbs/Boxes is should set the correct permissions.

I must say that on all the servers that we run I've hardly had a problem with Exim. Indeed, I find it to be a wonderful MTA.

Any problems that I have seen have been down to either:

Incorrect settings in WHM (e.g. limitations on emails/hour setting)
Incorrect manual modification of exim.conf
Incorrect DNS settings
Incorrect Firewall settings

[DevilBear]

I'm afraid of scripts like that, chirpy ;-)

I think Exim's fantastic, but cPanel's install of it kinda weird. The people on the Exim mailing list seem mystified by it.

[chirpy]

I'm surprised about the Exim folk. I was new to Exim in December 2003 and worked through it and liked it a lot. I then worked all the way through how cPanel use it and it makes a great deal of sense.

There are certainly some oddities (like having to have a virtual email address for your main account if you disable your catchall to name but one) it is quite easy to follow.

The biggest issue for me is not having the source or documentation for cppop. Having that would help to explain a lot of strange happenings with the receiving of email.

[chirpy]

To answer the question about permissions:

For the passwd and shadow files in:
/home/username/etc/passwd
/home/username/etc/shadow
/home/username/etc/domain.com/passwd
/home/username/etc/domain.com/shadow

They should be CHMOD 644 with an ownership of username:mail

However, the directories:
/home/username/etc
/home/username/etc/domain.com

should be CHMOD 750 with an ownership also of username:mail

Another area that sometimes is an issue is with the valiases files. Those under /etc/valiases/domain.com should be CHMOD 644, again username:mail and the /etc/valiases directory should be CHMOD 755 root:root

Hope that helps someone

[DevilBear]

That definitely helps! Thanks so much for giving the actual answers. Even if I were to end up using the repair script, I like to know what's going on :-)

Now, any idea why ALL the accounts on my server have the wrong perms for those files? The user is different for each, it's always the same as the account username. mail doesn't own any of them.

[chirpy]

The user is not mail, that's the group. The files should be owned by the main username of the account, i.e. username:mail. So for account name bob, the passwd file should be owned by bob:mail

If you want to know exactly what that script does, you can read it (have fun!) if you know perl:
/scripts/mailperm

[bmcpanel]

This thread was a big help. My 550 error problem is now solved. Thank you, thank you!

[chirpy]

Glad you're up and running