Understanding what needs to be in place for a server to send outgoing email from a linux box
- by Matt
I am attempting to configure an openSuse 11.1 box to send outgoing email for a domain that the same server is hosting. I don't understand enough about smtp servers and the like to know what needs to be in place and working.
The system already had Postfix installed, and I confirmed it was running via a
> sudo /etc/init.d/postfix status
I examined the Postfix config file in /etc/main.cf and configured a couple of items regarding the domain/host name and such, but left it largely default.
I attempted to send an email from the command line with the following command:
> echo "test 123" | mail -s "test subject" [email protected]
Where differentdomain.com was not the same domain as the one best hosted on the server. However, the email never reaches the target account.
Any suggestions?
EDIT:
In the postfix log, (/var/log/mail.info, there's nothing in .err) I see that postfix is trying to connect to what appears to be a different smtp server on our network, with a connection refused:
connect to ourdomain.com.inbound15.mxlogic.net[our ip address]:25: Connection refused
However, I can't figure out why it is 1) trying to connect to that server and 2) not just sending the messages itself... I mean, isn't postfix an smtp server?
I did a grep -ri on ourdomain from /etc and see no configuration files anywhere telling it to do this. Why is it?
