Questions[mailx](server)

I have a script that needs to send emails to notify about system events and status - a pretty common use-case, I'd think - and I chose to use mailx for this (why I no longer remember) on my Fedora Server system.

Everything was just fine and dandy until a recent upgrade whereupon I started getting an extra email for every one sent. The first line identifies the mail system host. The second line reads:

Enclosed is the mail delivery report that you requested.

Except that I didn't knowingly or willingly request the email delivery report! They just started showing up post-upgrade. (Either that, or my client-side spam filter - Thunderbird) was killing them for me, I suppose?! It's weird, sometimes doing a great job, then suddenly catching nothing at all?! -shrug- )

I suppose I can use an explicit directive in my mail reader's "filters" to get rid of these, but I'd rather they not be generated in the first place - the emails that are sent are what's valuable and I just don't need or want these "delivery report"s.

I started with mailx's man page. Nothing useful there, or, at least, I didn't recognize any setting for this type of thing. I STRONGLY suspect this is generated somehow by the interaction of mailx and Postfix, though that's only a hunch. I get exactly one mail status report per call to mailx, but none when I either send mail via alpine or Thunderbird from the same account through the same Postfix installation.

Here's the pattern the code uses:

/bin/mailx -n -s "subject" -s from=from_address to_address < content

The -n means don't read any local configuration. The -S indicates setting a "variable", in this case specifying a from address.

I took the Postfix queue ID and used grep to find it in /var/log/maillog:

Aug 11 12:14:32 fs1 postfix/pickup[233386]: C834918E658F: uid=nnnn from=<SystemUsername>
Aug 11 12:14:32 fs1 postfix/cleanup[237953]: C834918E658F: message-id=<5f32ee18.AXOWyPor64xZtCVH%From@EmailAddress>
Aug 11 12:14:32 fs1 postfix/qmgr[4780]: C834918E658F: from=<SystemUsername@PostfixsPrimaryFQDN>, size=1511, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Aug 11 12:14:32 fs1 postfix/local[237956]: C834918E658F: to=<Recipient@EamilAddress>, relay=local, delay=0.14, delays=0.05/0/0/0.08, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered to mailbox)
Aug 11 12:14:32 fs1 postfix/bounce[238851]: C834918E658F: sender delivery status notification: E2BC718E6D06
Aug 11 12:14:32 fs1 postfix/qmgr[4780]: C834918E658F: removed

I noticed that sometimes there was an expansion of the delivery address and other times not. So, that would, I'd think, rule out the known quirk where Postfix sends status emails when asked to do expansion validation, "does this exist" checks.

All the deliveries are local in this instance, but they could be remote - I just don't have a live occurrence of that right now - this is an in-production server.

I've looked hard on where to find them, but most all my web searches point me at materials discussing bounce status messages. Nope, wrong thing!

The system:

Fedora Server 32 (booted into 31 presently)
mailx 12.5 7/5/10
postfix-3.5.4-2.fc32.x86_64

I'm trying to set up a type of notification system that will alert me when my website is down using crontab and mailx. I went ahead and installed mailx on my server and then tried to send a simple test email by doing: mail -s "Testing" myemail.com < /dev/null, but I receive nothing in my inbox. The only message I see after entering that command is mailx saying that the body is null, which is completely fine for this situation.

I started looking online and noticed that for mailx to work I need to setup an MTA using something like mutt or postfix, but my server is already configured with postfix so I would think that this would have gave me an error upon sending the email.

I really don't know much about mailx or postfix for that matter so it's a little difficult for me to debug this issue when there aren't any errors occurring. If anyone knows why this would be happening, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

I have a script which sends emails. It works perfectly when run manually but I doesn't work when run with crontab:

#!/bin/bash
cat $HOME/myfolder/mailbody | /bin/mailx -v -s "mymail" -a file.txt [email protected] > $HOME/myfolder/script.log

When run with crontab, nothing is written in "$HOME/myfolder/script.log". I can't understand why with crontab the command to send the email is not run.

Edit: Please note that unlike many other similar questions, this configuration works perfectly when the message is received via smtp. The problem is only when its sent via the mail command. The virtual_alias_domains and DNS are appear to be configured correctly, and are documented below.

I'm running Postfix 3.1.1, and I have just discovered that Postfix fails to delivery any local messages sent via the mail command on the server, but works fine via smtpd.

Here is a log transcript if the message arrives via smtp:

2020-02-02 23:06:34.048389+1000 0x72d3b  Info  25056  smtpd: 0BB1614AB18E: client=office.sendingdomain.com.au[203.2.2.2]
2020-02-02 23:06:34.066985+1000 0x72ee4  Info  25072  cleanup: 0BB1614AB18E: message-id=<[email protected]>
2020-02-02 23:06:34.068755+1000 0x722f6  Info  24886  qmgr: 0BB1614AB18E: from=<[email protected]>, size=889, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
2020-02-02 23:06:34.084680+1000 0x72d3b  Info  25056  smtpd: disconnect from office.sendingdomain.com.au[203.2.2.2] ehlo=2 starttls=1 mail=1 rcpt=1 data=1 quit=1 commands=7
2020-02-02 23:06:36.482250+1000 0x72f12  Info  25079  smtpd: connect from localhost[127.0.0.1]
2020-02-02 23:06:36.489399+1000 0x72f12  Info  25079  smtpd: 774C714AB19C: client=localhost[127.0.0.1]
2020-02-02 23:06:36.492067+1000 0x72ee4  Info  25072  cleanup: 774C714AB19C: message-id=<[email protected]>
2020-02-02 23:06:36.493066+1000 0x72f12  Info  25079  smtpd: disconnect from localhost[127.0.0.1] ehlo=1 mail=1 rcpt=1 data=1 quit=1 commands=5
2020-02-02 23:06:36.493595+1000 0x722f6  Info  24886  qmgr: 774C714AB19C: from=<[email protected]>, size=1585, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
2020-02-02 23:06:36.531628+1000 0x72ee7  Info  25073  smtp: 0BB1614AB18E: to=<[email protected]>, orig_to=<[email protected]>, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10024, delay=2.9, delays=0.45/0.09/0.04/2.3, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 from MTA(smtp:[127.0.0.1]:10025): 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 774C714AB19C)

And here is the log transcript if I do mail [email protected] from the command-line on the mail server while logged in as root:

2020-02-02 23:08:56.102815+1000 0x732a3    Info        0x0                  25116  cleanup: 118E214AB263: message-id=<[email protected]>
2020-02-02 23:08:56.103991+1000 0x732a1    Info        0x0                  25115  qmgr: 118E214AB263: from=<[email protected]>, size=338, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
2020-02-02 23:08:56.155341+1000 0x72d3b    Info        0x0                  25056  smtpd: connect from home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201]
2020-02-02 23:08:56.156441+1000 0x732a7    Default     0x0                  25118  smtp: warning: host home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201]:25 greeted me with my own hostname home.mydomain.com
2020-02-02 23:08:56.157154+1000 0x732a7    Default     0x0                  25118  smtp: warning: host home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201]:25 replied to HELO/EHLO with my own hostname home.mydomain.com
2020-02-02 23:08:56.186791+1000 0x732a7    Info        0x0                  25118  smtp: 118E214AB263: to=<[email protected]>, relay=home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201]:25, delay=0.76, delays=0.7/0.03/0.02/0, dsn=5.4.6, status=bounced (mail for mydomain.com loops back to myself)
2020-02-02 23:08:56.187402+1000 0x72d3b    Info        0x0                  25056  smtpd: disconnect from home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201] ehlo=1 quit=1 commands=2
2020-02-02 23:08:56.189190+1000 0x732a3    Info        0x0                  25116  cleanup: 2DF3614AB265: message-id=<[email protected]>
2020-02-02 23:08:56.190087+1000 0x732a1    Info        0x0                  25115  qmgr: 2DF3614AB265: from=<>, size=2383, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
2020-02-02 23:08:56.190987+1000 0x732a1    Info        0x0                  25115  qmgr: 118E214AB263: removed
2020-02-02 23:08:56.221747+1000 0x732a3    Info        0x0                  25116  cleanup: 35E4B14AB266: message-id=<[email protected]>
2020-02-02 23:08:56.222627+1000 0x732b0    Info        0x0                  25120  local: 2DF3614AB265: to=<[email protected]>, relay=local, delay=0.03, delays=0/0.03/0/0, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (forwarded as 35E4B14AB266)
2020-02-02 23:08:56.222654+1000 0x732a1    Info        0x0                  25115  qmgr: 35E4B14AB266: from=<>, size=2533, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
2020-02-02 23:08:56.223659+1000 0x732a1    Info        0x0                  25115  qmgr: 2DF3614AB265: removed
2020-02-02 23:08:56.237912+1000 0x72d3b    Info        0x0                  25056  smtpd: connect from home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201]
2020-02-02 23:08:56.238780+1000 0x732a7    Default     0x0                  25118  smtp: warning: host home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201]:25 greeted me with my own hostname home.mydomain.com
2020-02-02 23:08:56.239572+1000 0x732a7    Default     0x0                  25118  smtp: warning: host home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201]:25 replied to HELO/EHLO with my own hostname home.mydomain.com
2020-02-02 23:08:56.240770+1000 0x732a7    Info        0x0                  25118  smtp: 35E4B14AB266: to=<[email protected]>, orig_to=<[email protected]>, relay=home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201]:25, delay=0.02, delays=0/0/0.02/0, dsn=5.4.6, status=bounced (mail for mydomain.com loops back to myself)
2020-02-02 23:08:56.241401+1000 0x72d3b    Info        0x0                  25056  smtpd: disconnect from home.mydomain.com[10.0.5.201] ehlo=1 quit=1 commands=2
2020-02-02 23:08:56.242120+1000 0x732a1    Info        0x0                  25115  qmgr: 35E4B14AB266: removed

The server's ONLY IP address is 10.0.5.201, so I do not understand why it is opening up an SMTP connection to itself. When I query the DNS, it all correctly resolves to that IP:

Here is the DNS resolution config

# cat /etc/resolv.conf 
search home.mydomain.com mydomain.com
nameserver 10.0.5.1

Here is a query to that nameserver for the MX hosts:

# host -t mx mydomain.com 10.0.5.1
Using domain server:
Name: 10.0.5.1
Address: 10.0.5.1#53
Aliases: 

mydomain.com mail is handled by 50 internet.mydomain.com.
mydomain.com mail is handled by 10 home.mydomain.com.

Finally, here is a query for the A record for that host.

# host home.mydomain.com 10.0.5.1
Using domain server:
Name: 10.0.5.1
Address: 10.0.5.1#53
Aliases: 

home.mydomain.com has address 10.0.5.201

So, the DNS looks pretty clean to me.

Since the problem is only occurring when using the mail command, is the problem somewhere in master.cf?

smtp      inet  n       -       n       -       1       postscreen
smtpd     pass  -       -       n       -       -       smtpd
dnsblog   unix  -       -       n       -       0       dnsblog
tlsproxy  unix  -       -       n       -       0       tlsproxy
submission inet n       -       n       -       -       smtpd
  -o smtpd_tls_security_level=encrypt
  -o smtpd_enforce_tls=yes
  -o smtpd_sasl_auth_enable=yes
  -o content_filter=
  -o smtpd_recipient_restrictions=permit_sasl_authenticated,reject
smtp      unix  -       -       n       -       -       smtp

proxywrite unix -       -       n       -       1       proxymap

pickup    fifo  n       -       n       60      1       pickup
  -o content_filter=smtp-amavis:[127.0.0.1]:10024
cleanup   unix  n       -       n       -       0       cleanup
qmgr      fifo  n       -       n       300     1       qmgr
#qmgr     fifo  n       -       n       300     1       oqmgr
tlsmgr    unix  -       -       n       1000?   1       tlsmgr
rewrite   unix  -       -       n       -       -       trivial-rewrite
bounce    unix  -       -       n       -       0       bounce
defer     unix  -       -       n       -       0       bounce
trace     unix  -       -       n       -       0       bounce
verify    unix  -       -       n       -       1       verify
sacl-cache unix -       -       n       -       1       sacl-cache
flush     unix  n       -       n       1000?   0       flush
proxymap  unix  -       -       n       -       -       proxymap
# When relaying mail as backup MX, disable fallback_relay to avoid MX loops
relay     unix  -       -       n       -       -       smtp
    -o smtp_fallback_relay=
#       -o smtp_helo_timeout=5 -o smtp_connect_timeout=5
showq     unix  n       -       n       -       -       showq
error     unix  -       -       n       -       -       error
retry     unix  -       -       n       -       -       error
discard   unix  -       -       n       -       -       discard
local     unix  -       n       n       -       -       local
virtual   unix  -       n       n       -       -       virtual
lmtp      unix  -       -       n       -       -       lmtp
anvil     unix  -       -       n       -       1       anvil
scache    unix  -       -       n       -       1       scache

dovecot   unix  -       n       n       -       25      pipe
  flags=DRhu user=_dovecot:mail argv=/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-lda -d ${user}

policy    unix  -       n       n       -       -       spawn
  user=nobody:mail argv=/usr/bin/perl /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/libexec/postfix/greylist.pl

smtp-amavis unix -      -       y       -       2       smtp
   -o smtp_data_done_timeout=1200
   -o smtp_send_xforward_command=yes
   -o disable_dns_lookups=yes
   -o max_use=20

127.0.0.1:10025 inet n  -       y       -       -       smtpd
   -o content_filter=
   -o smtpd_tls_security_level=none
   -o smtpd_delay_reject=no
   -o smtpd_client_restrictions=permit_mynetworks,reject
   -o smtpd_helo_restrictions=
   -o smtpd_sender_restrictions=
   -o smtpd_recipient_restrictions=permit_mynetworks,reject
   -o smtpd_data_restrictions=reject_unauth_pipelining
   -o smtpd_end_of_data_restrictions=
   -o smtpd_restriction_classes=
   -o mynetworks=127.0.0.0/8
   -o smtpd_error_sleep_time=0
   -o smtpd_soft_error_limit=1001
   -o smtpd_hard_error_limit=1000
   -o smtpd_client_connection_count_limit=0
   -o smtpd_client_connection_rate_limit=0
   -o receive_override_options=no_header_body_checks,no_unknown_recipient_checks,no_milters
   -o local_header_rewrite_clients=
   -o smtpd_milters=
   -o local_recipient_maps=
   -o relay_recipient_maps=

And here are is the output of postconf -n:

alias_maps = hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/aliases hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Data/listserver/aliases/list_server_aliases
biff = no
command_directory = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin
compatibility_level = 2
config_directory = /Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix
content_filter = smtp-amavis:[127.0.0.1]:10024
daemon_directory = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/libexec/postfix
data_directory = /Library/Server/Mail/Data/mta
debug_peer_level = 2
debugger_command = PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin ddd $daemon_directory/$process_name $process_id & sleep 5
disable_vrfy_command = yes
dovecot_destination_recipient_limit = 1
enable_server_options = yes
header_checks = pcre:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/custom_header_checks
html_directory = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/share/doc/postfix/html
imap_submit_cred_file = /Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/submit.cred
inet_interfaces = all
inet_protocols = ipv4
mail_owner = _postfix
mailbox_size_limit = 0
mailbox_transport = dovecot
mailq_path = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/bin/mailq
manpage_directory = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/share/man
message_size_limit = 31457280
mydestination = home.mydomain.com, localhost
mydomain = home.mydomain.com
mydomain_fallback = localhost
myhostname = home.mydomain.com
mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8, 10.0.5.1/32, 10.0.5.31/32, [::1]/128
newaliases_path = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/bin/newaliases
proxy_interfaces = 124.148.20.193
queue_directory = /Library/Server/Mail/Data/spool
readme_directory = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/share/doc/postfix
recipient_canonical_maps = hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/system_user_maps
recipient_delimiter = +
relayhost =
sample_directory = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/share/doc/postfix/examples
sendmail_path = /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/sendmail
setgid_group = _postdrop
smtp_tls_CAfile = /Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/ca-certificates.pem
smtp_tls_loglevel = 1
smtp_tls_mandatory_protocols = !SSLv2, !SSLv3
smtp_tls_protocols = !SSLv2, !SSLv3
smtp_tls_security_level = may
smtpd_data_restrictions = reject_unauth_pipelining, permit
smtpd_enforce_tls = no
smtpd_helo_required = yes
smtpd_pw_server_security_options = cram-md5,digest-md5,gssapi,login,plain
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated reject_non_fqdn_recipient check_recipient_access hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/access permit_mynetworks reject_unauth_destination reject_non_fqdn_sender check_sender_access hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/sender_access check_sender_access regexp:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/regexp_sender reject_non_fqdn_hostname reject_invalid_helo_hostname check_helo_access regexp:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/helo_access reject_rbl_client zen.spamhaus.org reject_rbl_client bl.spamcop.net permit
smtpd_require_virtual_map = yes
smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/certificates/home.mydomain.com.A892E14870AED314279463AACA7B5424BDA1C1D0.chain.pem
smtpd_tls_auth_only = yes
smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/certificates/home.mydomain.com.A892E14870AED314279463AACA7B5424BDA1C1D0.cert.pem
smtpd_tls_ciphers = medium
smtpd_tls_exclude_ciphers = SSLv2, 3DES, aNULL, ADH, eNULL, EXPORT
smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/certificates/home.mydomain.com.A892E14870AED314279463AACA7B5424BDA1C1D0.key.pem
smtpd_tls_mandatory_protocols = !SSLv2, !SSLv3
smtpd_tls_protocols = !SSLv2, !SSLv3
smtpd_use_pw_server = yes
smtpd_use_tls = yes
soft_bounce = yes
tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom
unknown_local_recipient_reject_code = 550
use_sacl_cache = yes
virtual_alias_domains = $virtual_alias_maps hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/virtual_domains
virtual_alias_maps = $virtual_maps hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/virtual regexp:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/regexp_virtual hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/virtual_users hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Data/listserver/aliases/list_server_virtual

mydomain.com is defined in virtual_domains:

mydomain.com            allow

[email protected] is defined in virtual_users:

[email protected]    jay

Why doesn't postfix realise that the message dropped off via mail is for local delivery and hand it off to dovecot like it does when the message is received via smtp?