Christopher, I agree with Dev 100 percent, check your local DNS settings. You will need to have an entry for the host name of the Imail server. We had a very, very similar problem when we switched out servers here and it was exactly that, local DNS for the SMSSMTP server was not reflecting an entry for the Imail server.
Tim -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dev Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 1:15 AM To: Christopher Jones Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] Imail & SMSSMTP Issue We had a similar combo setup (IMail/SMSSMTP) for about a year prior to finally switching to Merak. The combo worked OK, but inability to handle dictionary attacks and lack of flexibility ultimately killed it. Two things to look carefully at: 1. Double check your local DNS config. SMSSMTP relies solely on Windows internal network settings for determining the DNS server it will use for Name Resolution. Also check your HOSTS file to make sure it doesn't have to do a lookup to find the Imail box. 2. I found SMSSTMP to be extremely uppity about host name agreement. Not sure exactly how, but here is some interesting behavior that may relate to your issue: Because our SMSSMTP host name (set during SMSMTP program install) did NOT match that of the underlying windows server name, SMSSMTP admin web logins ALWAYS took 6-12 seconds (while the non-matching name failures timed-out) before displaying the status page. Our second MX DID have the same name as the host, and admin logins were always instantaneous. (No time-out problem on our VMWARE test boxes where the name agreed, either.) Since your issues started after a SMSSMTP rename, I'm very suspicious that your prob may somehow relate to some weird extended SMSSMTP processing timeout issue stacking up open connections. Good luck! Dev Monday, April 11, 2005, 7:44:31 PM, you wrote: CJ> Hey everyone, CJ> We are having a problem with our mail server CJ> that for the life of me, I CJ> can't work out. Our email was down for 12 hours yesterday. CJ> This is a bit of a long story, and I CJ> apologise, but this is all the CJ> information I have. CJ> We are running a HP Proliant ML370G3 running CJ> Imail 8.15 HotFix 1, and CJ> Symantec Mail Security for SMTP Gateways 4.1.0.19 (SMSSMTP). CJ> SMSSMTP uses Port 25, so all mail that is sent CJ> by our client PCs first hits CJ> SMSSMTP and is then is forwarded to Imail if CJ> the mail is internal, or sent CJ> directly out to the Internet if it's destined CJ> to an external address. CJ> Imail uses Port 110 for the POP3 connections, and Port 1025 for SMTP CJ> connections. CJ> Long before I started working here, whoever CJ> setup Imail had setup our CJ> primary domain, ruralpress.com, with the name CJ> of the server in front of the CJ> domain. So the domain was CJ> rplemail.ruralpress.com. This wasn't really an CJ> issue, because ruralpress.com was configured as an alias. CJ> The problem was that whenever creating a new CJ> email account in Imail, the CJ> reply to address would be CJ> [EMAIL PROTECTED] So whenever you sent CJ> an email from Webmail, the rplemail would be CJ> in the reply to address. When CJ> you create a new account you have to go and CJ> manually remove this, otherwise CJ> users couldn't reply to our messages sent from webmail. CJ> On the weekend, I backed up the Imail registry CJ> and all the data files and CJ> reinstalled it. I did a find and replace on CJ> the registry file and removed CJ> all the rplemail. entries, then reimported it. CJ> The domain was now called CJ> ruralpress.com and everything was running CJ> fine. It took less than 20 minutes CJ> to do this. CJ> Then, 2 days later, we started having problems. CJ> Basically, mail being sent from clients would CJ> not leave the outbox. I could CJ> telnet to port 25 on the mail server, but CJ> would not receive a response from CJ> SMSSMTP. Usually you can enter SMTP commands CJ> and actually send an email via CJ> the command line, but you couldn't even type anything. CJ> Restarting the SMSSMTP service fixed the CJ> problem for about 10-20 minutes and CJ> then it would do it again. CJ> In the SMSSMTP reports, there were a lot of CJ> SMTP connections that had CJ> "connection terminated prematurely". I did a CJ> search on the Symantec website CJ> for this error and came across a page talking CJ> about HP NIC's. It suggested CJ> updating to the latest drivers, which I did. CJ> However, the problem persisted. CJ> Next, I rebooted the server completely but CJ> 10-20 minutes later, more of the CJ> same. CJ> I contacted Symantec who had me download CJ> SMSSMTP 4.1.4.0, which I upgraded CJ> to, yet 10-20 minutes later the same thing. CJ> We thought it could be a corrupt config in CJ> SMSSMTP so I restored the config CJ> from Friday night's backup tape and tired that. No luck. CJ> Next we completely uninstalled SMSSMTP and CJ> recreated the config from CJ> scratch. Same problem. CJ> There were some SUS Updates installed on CJ> Saturday morning, so we began CJ> removing them 1 by 1 (there were 7 in total). CJ> When we got to the update CJ> KB841356, we had to reboot. After rebooting CJ> the server would not load the CJ> desktop, but we could connect to it from CJ> another server. So, we copied off CJ> all the data we needed for Imail. CJ> We had a new server that was destined for CJ> something else, but began building CJ> that as a replacement. The new server is a HP CJ> Proliant ML370G3 with 3 x 72GB CJ> HDD, 2.5GB RAM and 2 x Intel 3.2Ghz XEON CPUs. CJ> We built this with Windows CJ> 2000 Server SP4 and installed Imail 8.15HF1 CJ> and then SMSSMTP 4.1.4.0. I CJ> restored all the registry files and data and CJ> everything started working. Too CJ> easy I thought! CJ> 10-20 minutes later, same problem again! ARGH!!!! CJ> So...it was about 11.30pm at this stage....I CJ> stopped all the services. And I CJ> removed Imail. I then deleted all registry CJ> keys for it and re-added the CJ> registry settings from BEFORE I changed the CJ> domain name on the weekend, CJ> thinking maybe it was something to do with CJ> that. But, no luck. The problem CJ> kept happening. CJ> When we left at about 12.20am, I had left CJ> SMSSMTP running, but on Port 1026. CJ> So nothing is sending any data to it. Imail is CJ> using Port 25 and 110 and is CJ> working fine. I came back in at 7am and CJ> SMSSMTP hadn't stopped responding CJ> like it was the day before, but this I think CJ> is due to it not having any CJ> connections to port 1026. CJ> When I had run a netstat -a on the email CJ> server at the times it had stopped CJ> responding, there was a HUGE list of computers CJ> with connections to port 25. CJ> Many had multiple connections. Even my laptop CJ> had several connections but I CJ> hadn't sent any mail in a few minutes. It CJ> almost seemed as if SMSSMTP wasn't CJ> closing the connections when they had finished CJ> and was holding them open. So CJ> we think when it reached its limit of 50 CJ> simultaneous inbound SMTP CJ> connections, it was not accepting any more. CJ> This could be why we couldn't CJ> send mail after that limit had been reached. CJ> You can increase the limit up to 100 in CJ> SMSSMTP, but this won't help. It CJ> will prolong the time the server works for, CJ> but will still eventually break CJ> again when the connections reach 100. I can't CJ> find any settings or any CJ> reason why it would be keeping the connections open. CJ> I rang Symantec this morning and I have sent CJ> them the SMSSMTP config file, CJ> the log file for yesterday, and then System CJ> and Application Event Logs in CJ> hopes they can see a problem. CJ> I know it's almost certain the problem is CJ> related to SMSSMTP, not Imail, but CJ> does anyone have any ideas or had any similar CJ> problems? I can't see why what CJ> I would have done on the weekend (renaming the CJ> domain) would have stuffed up CJ> SMSSMTP. The routing in SMSSMTP already contained entries for CJ> rplemail.ruralpress.com and ruralpress.com. CJ> And it was all working for 2 CJ> days. Nothing else changed. CJ> The only other thing is that earlier versions CJ> of SMSSMTP had a limit of 1000 CJ> entries in the Whitelist. In this latest CJ> version we have over 1120 entries. CJ> But Symantec don't think this should be an issue. CJ> If anyone has anything I can try I would be CJ> more than happy to hear it!!!!! CJ> Any help would be muchly appreciated!!!!!!! CJ> Thanks heaps (and sorry to bore you all) CJ> Chris Jones CJ> IT Support & Security CJ> Rural Press Limited CJ> Sydney, Australia CJ> Ph: +61 2 4570 4444 CJ> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CJ> To Unsubscribe: CJ> http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html CJ> List Archive: CJ> http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ CJ> Knowledge Base/FAQ: CJ> http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
