Question

We're starting with TWiki in the office, using TWikiVMDebianStable running on VMware on a Windows box. I have upgraded TWiki from 4.0.4 to 4.2.0 and enabled support for German characters. The configure script is happy.

Question: How do I turn on the mail service? I want to use this for registration confirmations and for password resets.

The default method /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -oi -oeq does not appear to work; when {EnableEmail} = 1 then there are no warnings or errors but no mail arrives.

Environment

-- TorbenGB - 25 Apr 2008

Answer

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I guess you executed every step in http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/TWikiVMDebianStable#Email_configuration. After that did you receive the test mail?

Are you using NAT or Bridged network connection? If you use NAT you need to map port 25 or the port used by your mail server to SMTP protocol.

In configure only specify {WebMasterEmail}. Leave the fields {SMTP}{MAILHOST}, {SMTP}{SENDERHOST}, {SMTP}{Username} and {SMTP}{Password} empty.

Check for errors in \root\var\log\exim4\mainlog

-- EnriqueCadalso - 25 Apr 2008

configure is set with blank fields as you describe. I did every step in the configuration, but I did not receive my test mail.

The exim4\mainlog is listing

tgb@mybusiness.at R=smarthost T=remote_smtp_smarthost defer (-53): retry time not reached for any host

As to NAT or Bridge, I don't know. How can I find this?

-- TorbenGB - 28 Apr 2008

If the test mail was not received then there are problems in the communication with the mail server, so there is no need to touch again twiki configuration to solve that.

In WMWare, in Edit Virtual Machine Settings, selecting Ethernet network adapter the NAT or Bridget connection type can be specified. Selecting Bridge means the VM will have its own IP address in the network, so it is a good choice to start with in case of a small network to make tests.

I would check the logs of the mail server. Usually mail servers have restriction rules to avoid relaying mail coming from others domains, or coming from unknown users. In that case the IP address of the VM must be included in the configuration of the mail server to allow the relaying the mail coming from that IP. Of course how to do that depends of the particular mail server you are using.

Another issue here is that VMWare have a DHCP service to assign the IP address to their network connections. An option here is to disable that service and assign static IP address to be sure about what IP the VM have and what IP the mail server have to allow relay from. To do this log on the VM and type

nano /etc/network/interfaces

And change the line iface eth0 inet dhcp with this

iface eth0 inet static
address (the IP address here)
netmask (the network mask here)
gateway (the gateway)

After restarting check the connection with the mail server from the VM and try again the test mail.

-- EnriqueCadalso - 30 Apr 2008

We need the IP to stay the same because users' bookmarks rely on it. I don't want to set a hard-coded IP address though, for fear of conflicts with the network (and our IT department).

The machine is set up with Bridged as the connection. I tried setting it no NAT instead but then it booted with a new IP; can't use that. It's back to Bridged now and the usual IP address.

I don't have access to server logs, neither for the network nor for the mail server. As I don't even know the name or IP of our internal (Lotus Notes) mail server, I specified my personal ISP's mail server in EXIM4 instead. Will this not work?

-- TorbenGB - 02 May 2008

If you have Bridged then IP of the VM must be dynamically provided by a DHCP server on your local network. From the VM make ping your-personal-ISP's-mail-server. If there is no response then you have a problem. The VM needs to know the IP address of the mail server, if you provide just the name it have to be "resolved" to an IP address using a DNS server. Providing the DHCP server dynamically configures all this in your VM all should work ok, but is likely that some problems will arise. Definitely you will have to contact your network administrator to make things happen.

-- EnriqueCadalso - 05 May 2008

Update: We have now moved away from the Debian VM to a dedicated Suse machine. I need to start over looking at this.

-- TorbenGB - 22 Sep 2008