At 3/18/2000 11:20 AM -0700, Stephen Bosch wrote or quoted:
>Just so you all know, I've only been running Linux for three months, and
>q-mail for about one month. I am a newbie in every sense of the word. Here
>is my
>
>PRIMER ON HOW TO GET A DECENT RESPONSE ON THE QMAIL LIST
>*for the lost and confused*
Thank you very much for posting this; I'd love to see an edited version
become part of the sign-up/subscription information for this list (along
with that info on how to unsubscribe).
>3. Here's the part where you get stuck. First and foremost, RECORD THE ERROR
>OUTPUT - you'll want to put this (preferably UNEDITED) in your e-mail to the
>list. So few people understand how important this is it staggers me.
Yes, yes, yes, yes YES! And while you're at it, any time you're including
something in an email, *copy and paste* it; do *NOT* retype it. I recall
about a month or so ago when somebody said "the contents of my such-and-so
file are: foo bar wombat". Everyone looked at it, found no errors, and
expended a lot of effort trying to figure out what was wrong. Then the guy
wrote back saying "Hey, I found the problem! My such-and-so file reads: foo
baz wombat, but the baz should be a bar." (I liked the response from
whoever said "So, when you told us the contents of your file were this,
they actually weren't?")
Also, if your problem is DNS-related (or potentially might be DNS-related),
*do not* anonymize your host information. There are many DNS gurus on this
list who will be very happy to poke around in the public DNS records for
the domains that are causing trouble and let you know if there's anything
wrong with their configuration, but they can't do this if you won't tell
them what domain you're administering.
>5. Give a clear explanation of *what* you are trying to accomplish.
As well as what you've done, how to reproduce the problem, what kind of
platform (hardware and software) you're running on, etc. If you have some
knowledge of Unix and qmail, you may be sure that certain data aren't
necessary (for example, if you're having the ubiquitous "how do I set up
selective relaying?" problem, we really don't need to know what kind of
hard disk you've got, but if you're wondering about deliveries per second,
it does matter). If you aren't sure if some data is important, put it in.
It's always easier to deal with a question that has more information (and
I've never seen anyone on any list say "You gave me too much information,
now I'm going to be all huffy at you or not answer your question!").
Don't ever say "I've done such-and-so correctly." If you think you did it
all correctly, then why are you writing into the list with a problem? If
you are really positive that a certain subsection of your installation is
okay and want to make life easier for the people trying to help you by
ensuring that they don't expend effort on debugging that sheaf of
possibilities, then instead tell us *why* you think a certain thing is
fine. Examples:
Instead of: How about:
"qmail-smtpd is installed I can telnet to port 25, send a message
correctly" with SMTP, and see it show up in the logs.
"selective relaying is From a Windows client, I can send mail to
installed correctly" anyone @mydomain.tld, but when I try to send
to other domains, I get the expected "that
address is unacceptable to your SMTP server"
error message
(Note that in the last example, the two situations are *not* synonymous!)
Ideally, a help request should like the following examples.
I am attempting to install qmail 1.03 from tarball on a [describe
all hardware and OS, plus your development/compilation environment].
During the compile, I get this error: [cut and paste nasty error from
make, gcc, or whatever].
or:
I am running qmail on a Foonly F-1, installed using Mate Weirdl's
Memphis RPM. I can send mail with SMTP just fine, but when any user
tries to pop mail, their POP client gives them the message: "ERR:
Authorization failed." Looking in /var/log/maillog, I see the follow-
ing: "[multi-line log excerpt here]"
(In this case, we can presume that you want users to be able to receive
mail via POP.)
or even:
I'm trying to set up selective relaying. I've read the part about
that in Life With Qmail, but I still can't understand what to do.
I have installed tcpserver in /usr/local/bin, with the rules file:
[copy and paste rules file]. I am invoking it with: [actual line(s)
from startup script(s), copied and pasted]. When I attempt [specific
action -- "to start tcpserver" or "to send mail via SMTP" or some
such], I see the following results: [copy and paste of actual console
session, log entry, error message, or whatever]. What am I doing wrong?
>Follow these five (I should add - EASY) steps, and you WILL get a useful,
>very often verbose response from the many talented people who frequent this
>mailing list. I did.
They also work nicely for dealing with your local tech support
face-to-face. I started off the day dealing with someone who just told me
"my computer's just totally not working" -- what was I supposed to do with
that?
>First, I've done a bit of looking but it's not immediately obvious to me
>where qmail puts its logs -- in fact, I don't even know where to find the
>system logs. Would somebody kindly point me in the right direction?
Usual places are /var/log/maillog and /var/log/qmail/ (note the trailing
slash).
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Kai MacTane
System Administrator
Online Partners.com, Inc.
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From the Jargon File: (v4.0.0, 25 Jul 1996)
house wizard /n./
A hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D, or systems position
at a commercial shop. A really effective house wizard can have influ-
ence out of all proportion to his/her ostensible rank and still not
have to wear a suit.
