Problems with SMTP and Nagios

[Stanley Hopcroft]

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for your letter and provide a small amaount of 
nagtive assistance.

On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 12:45:13PM +0100, Andreas Widerøe Andersen wrote:
> Yesterday I built a new sendmail.cf file and added certain features such as 
> spam blocking. I also got the .cf file upgraded to the latest v.8.12.7. 
> Since those upgrades/changes were made I'm getting PROBLEM-Notifications 
> from Nagios (via mail) like this:
> 
> Subject: ** PROBLEM alert - Myserver/SMTP is CRITICAL **
> 
> Notification Type: PROBLEM
> 
> Service: SMTP
> Host: Myserver
> Address: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
> State: CRITICAL
> 
> Date/Time: Wed Feb 26 12:03:14 CET 2003
> 
> Additional Info:
> 
> Socket timeout after 10 seconds
> 
> In the /var/log/maillog I see the following when Nagios is reporting problems:
> 
> Feb 26 12:19:22 myserver sendmail[53651]: h1QBI13F053651: 
> mynagios.domain.com [212.125.232.195] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN 
> during connection to MTA
> 

Similar environment here (FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE + Sendmail 8.12.6) using 
check_smtp on the local (Nag host) MTA.

The log entries above are normal senmail complaints about a connection 
that fails to transmit a message: they are not responsible for Sendmail 
refusing the connection (and they becoming from another process).

eg

tsitc> date
Thu Feb 27 10:10:06 EST 2003

tsitc> telnet localhost smtp
Trying ::1...
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 tsitc.aipo.gov.au ESMTP Sendmail 8.12.6/8.12.6; Thu, 27 Feb 2003 
10:10:14 +1100 (EST)
quit
221 2.0.0 tsitc.aipo.gov.au closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

tsitc> tail -1 /var/log/maillog
Feb 27 10:10:16 tsitc sendmail[59632]: h1QNAEm3059632: localhost 
[127.0.0.1] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MTA
tsitc> date
Thu Feb 27 10:10:34 EST 2003
tsitc> 


> Anyone seen this before and perhaps have a way to fix it?
>

I don't think there is any way to fix it apart from modifying sendmail 
to refrain from such logging.

To make some progress with the problem, you should

1 Establish whether check_smtp works from the command line

2 Run the plugin on another host (so that you can trace the connection) 
and see why the problem host refused the connection.

or truss the check_smtp process on the monitor host with truss -p ..

Does the monitor host have a reverse DNS entry ?
Does it have to appear in some 'permitted to' list in Sendmail - such as 
accept relay from ?
 
> Thanks,
> Andreas
> 
> ---
> Andreas Widerøe Andersen <awand at pragma.no>
> Pragma AS
> 

Good luck,

Yours sincerely.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stanley Hopcroft
------------------------------------------------------------------------

'...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee...'

from Meditation 17, J Donne.


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