Unable to send, receive, and login to email. Using Roundcube, ISPConfig, Proxmox.
 

Hi everyone, embarrassingly speaking..I am a complete newbie when it comes to Linux and server administration. I am trapped in a situation in my current work that all was turned over to me when our network administrator resigned. :( I work at a government office here in the Philippines.

So here goes the problem. Our email (neither Roundcube or Thunderbird) is unable to send and receive emails. I am also unable to login to Roundcube. It just loads for a while after logging in then goes to the next page which is just a plain white page. Upon checking in ISPConfig, all the servers are online, specially POP3 and SMTP. :confused:

So I just can't figure out whats going on, and what's wrong with it. It was working perfectly last week. Then just broke down all of a sudden. I did series of shutdowns and restarts at our 2 baremetal servers..but to no avail.
I am not sure if it's about postfix because when I do "/etc/init.d/postfix restart", it says that it's already running.. But when I do "/etc/init.d/postfix status", it says it's not running..which is very confusing as well.

I really hope for your help guys. I would greatly appreciate any assistance. Thanks in advance.

PS:
Since I am a complete novice in Linux, if you can assist also in what command to type in terminal..I would REALLY appreciate it.

Kindly,
DJ

Which distribution do you use? Do you use ISPConfig 2 or 3?

Are there any errors in your mail log?

Hi Falko,

I think we are using ISPConfig 2.x.

Here are what's in my mail log..(quite long but repetitive):
Mar 18 08:54:38 mail postfix/local[31501]: fatal: open database /etc/aliases.db: No such file or directory
Mar 18 08:54:39 mail postfix/master[2821]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/local pid 31501 exit status 1
Mar 18 08:54:39 mail postfix/master[2821]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/local: bad command startup -- throttling
Mar 18 08:54:52 mail postfix/smtpd[31504]: fatal: open database /etc/aliases.db: No such file or directory
Mar 18 08:54:53 mail postfix/master[2821]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd pid 31504 exit status 1
Mar 18 08:54:53 mail postfix/master[2821]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/smtpd: bad command startup -- throttling
Mar 18 08:55:39 mail postfix/local[31527]: fatal: open database /etc/aliases.db: No such file or directory
Mar 18 08:55:40 mail postfix/master[2821]: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/local pid 31527 exit status 1
Mar 18 08:55:40 mail postfix/master[2821]: warning: /usr/libexec/postfix/local: bad command startup -- throttling

Thanks so much for giving time on my issue.

I did telnet localhost 25, these are the results:

Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.immigration.gov.ph ESMTP Postfix (2.4.5)
421 4.4.2 mail.immigration.gov.ph Error: timeout exceeded
Connection closed by foreign host.

-----------------------------------
And these are for main.cf:

mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8, 124.6.144.0/29
alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases
alias_database = hash:/etc/postfix/aliases
virtual_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual
smtpd_banner = mail.immigration.gov.ph ESMTP Postfix ($mail_version)
home_mailbox=
mail_spool_directory = /var/mail
myhostname = mail.immigration.gov.ph
mydomain = immigration.gov.ph
inet_interfaces = all
default_transport = smtp
myorigin = immigration.gov.ph
mydestination = immigration.gov.ph

smtp_sasl_local_domain =
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes
smtpb_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated,permit_mynetworks,check_ relay_domains
smtpd_tls_auth_only = no
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated,permit_mynetworks,check_ relay_domains
smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_sasl_local_domain =
smtpd_use_tls = yes
smtp_use_tls = yes
smtpd_tls_note_starttls_offer = yes
smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/postfix/ssl/smtpd.key
smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/postfix/ssl/smtpd.crt
smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/ssl/cacert.pem
smtpd_tlsloglevel = 1
smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1
smtpd_tls_received_header = yes
smtpd_tls_session_cache_timeout = 3600s
smtp_tls_note_starttls_offer = yes
tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom
inet_protocols = ipv4

Hope this helps. Thanks

Please try this:

Hi Falko,

Here are the results from what you asked me to do.

and my mail.log now is different (sorry quite long).

Here's a result again from telnet localhost 25.

Hope this helps falko. Thanks so much

I was trying to do dpkg-reconfigure postfix. And it gave me this result.

How exactly did you install Postfix? Did you use a guide from HowtoForge?

Proxmox/OpenVz memory issues
 

The clue to solve the problem can be in the 'throtling' word.

Check if Proxmox VM is OpenVz or KVM.
OpenVZ virtualisation is a bit different from your 'normal' servers or KVM's.
It looks like you are having memory problems on your Virtual Machines.
From the Proxmox web-console try increasing the memory allocated to the mail server. In servers that sometimes have problems with PHP or other services the memory usage sometimes 'peaks' and causes the OpenVZ containers to 'throtle' the memory usage. This can cause services to stop or crash on the containers.

I found that increasing the non-existant "swap" memory on the containers solved the issue on some of our problem servers.

Since OpenVZ uses filesystem level virtualisation there is no real "swap" memory on the containers anyway.

Hi Falko,
Postfix is already installed when the servers has been turned over to me. I am not sure if the past network admin used a guide in Howtoforge or elsewhere. But it was all working well until it crashed. Will try to check on SamTzu's guide. Will post again for any updates about the issue. Thanks!