Exim4 - Syntactically invalid argument question

[PeteC]

Fortunately, I haven't had too many problems with the Exim4 upgrade. But one perplexes me, and I thought I'd run it by anybody here willing to help.

I'm getting a lot of this error message in the exim_rejectlog:

syntactically invalid argument(s): correo_internet.colpatria.com

I already ran into the underscore issue and I have added the line:

helo_allow_chars = _

This got rid of these messages for all hosts except this particular one.

Does anybody know what's syntactically invalid about this host name?

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[kris1351]

I have already posted the fix for this. It is because you are receiving an email from a machine that has an _ in the name of it. Exim4 does not allow these to pass for some reason. Here is the work around:

vi /etc/exim.conf

Go to the MAIN CONFIGURATION section and add this line:

helo_allow_chars = _

Now restart exim /etc/init.d/exim restart

For safeguarding make exim.conf unwritable chattr -i /etc/exim.conf

This allows these servers to pass now. If you don't make exim.conf unwritable it will overwrite your change each time exim updates.

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[Website Rob]

Pete, is that the address giving problems or did you change it?

correo_internet.colpatria.com

Notice there is no @

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[cpanelnick]

Build 170 is a lot more lenient with invalid syntaxs. You should upgrade to if if you are having problems

/scripts/updatenow
/scripts/exim4

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[tAzMaNiAc]

Originally posted by kris1351

This allows these servers to pass now. If you don't make exim.conf unwritable it will overwrite your change each time exim updates.

I'd just make a copy like exim.conf.good_date. If you chattr +i exim.conf it won't get the thing installed unless yuo chattr -i it! Or did I miss something at the latest release? :-D

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[Website Rob]

Originally posted by bdraco
Build 170 is a lot more lenient with invalid syntaxs. You should upgrade to if if you are having problems

/scripts/updatenow
/scripts/exim4

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Edit: not having run '/scripts/exim4' before, wasn't aware it uses it's own version numbers, which is where the 170 comes in -- in case anyone else was wondering.


'nother Edit: seems that using '/scripts/exim4' leads to a bit of a loop:

2003-07-11 08:27:38 socket bind() to port 25 for address (any IPv4) failed: Address already in use: waiting before trying again
2003-07-11 08:27:38 socket bind() to port 465 for address (any IPv4) failed: Address already in use: waiting before trying again

Stopping Exim for a few seconds then restarting seems to fix it.

[kris1351]

We were getting those port errors to Rob. We updated yesterday morning and it seems to have gone away. Before the release yesterday morning we would have to stop and start Exim about every 2 hours to keep it running. Cpanels wonderful response was EMAIL us your passwords and we will go in and monkey with it. They didn't actually say what causes the port problems.

The reason I chattr the exim.conf was just for safeguard. We are using Mailmon to help reduce internal spam and it has a chattr on /usr/sbin/sendmail for the script to not get overwritten. Since we only do manual updates we just make a most current backup then unlock for the update.

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[kris1351]

Just tried doing the updatenow and the exim4 scripts to get to the latest version. It still rejects servers with the underscore in their name. You will still have to add the helo_allow_chars = _ line.

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[PeteC]

Originally posted by kris1351
Just tried doing the updatenow and the exim4 scripts to get to the latest version. It still rejects servers with the underscore in their name. You will still have to add the helo_allow_chars = _ line.

Kris, I've had the helo_allow_chars = _ in there for several days already.

Is it possible there's a certain place it needs to go and I don't have it in the right place? I have it in the Main configuration section, just under:

# primary hostname =
deliver_queue_load_max = 3
auto_thaw = 1h

helo_allow_chars = _

Much thanks to all the helpful folks who have posted in this thread. Hopefully I'll get to the bottom of this soon.

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[Curious Too]

Originally posted by PeteC
Kris, I've had the helo_allow_chars = _ in there for several days already.

Is it possible there's a certain place it needs to go and I don't have it in the right place? I have it in the Main configuration section, just under:

# primary hostname =
deliver_queue_load_max = 3
auto_thaw = 1h

helo_allow_chars = _

Much thanks to all the helpful folks who have posted in this thread. Hopefully I'll get to the bottom of this soon.

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Try adding helo_accept_junk_hosts = *

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[PeteC]

You know, what seems to be happening is that when I restart Exim from WHM, it's not picking up the new /etc/exim.conf. Because I've added some SPAM protection I use, and that's not enabled either.

So probably I'm OK with the helo_allow_chars = _ line, but why wouldn't restarting the Exim service pick up my changed /etc/exim.conf line? This works fine on another server of mine...

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[PeteC]

Originally posted by PeteC
You know, what seems to be happening is that when I restart Exim from WHM, it's not picking up the new /etc/exim.conf. Because I've added some SPAM protection I use, and that's not enabled either.

So probably I'm OK with the helo_allow_chars = _ line, but why wouldn't restarting the Exim service pick up my changed /etc/exim.conf line? This works fine on another server of mine...

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Just so nobody wastes any more time on this. The problem was that Exim was refusing to shut down during a restart. I eventually did get it to restart, and now I'm fine. I tried a lot of things to accomplish the restart; it seems restarting BIND was what worked. Not sure why that is so, but spend your time on someone else's problem now, as mine is fixed.

Another round of thanks to all you helpful folks.

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[cpanelnick]

Sorry guys, its build 180 that has this change in it.

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[Website Rob]

I think you hit the nail on the head, Pete.

My logs show eMail addresses with: _ * - in them, all get through and I have not made any changes to the default "exim.conf" file -- other than adding the RBLs. Mind you, I don't run Spam Assassin either as I have found it causes more trouble (for me) than it is worth.

As for shutting down, restarting services, not sure if your problem was doing it from WHM, but I have noticed that when in 'root' and using:

/etc/init.d/'required_service' restart ( i.e., in this case: /etc/init.d/exim restart )

seems to work best.

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