[Workaround.org] Corrections/Thoughts for Lenny ISP Mail Tutorial

mlists at stacktrace.us mlists at stacktrace.us
Sat Jun 27 18:44:45 CEST 2009


Mark Phillips wrote:
> Christoph,
>  
> A few notes from my experiences following the Lenny tutorial. And some 
> questions. I am running a fresh install of Lenny on Linode.com. Not sure 
> if running the xen kernal makes a difference, but it shouldn't for what 
> I ran into.
>  
> Just installed mysql-server on a fresh Lenny. I ran into this problem. 
> The installation asked for a "root" password. Even dpkg-reconfigure just 
> asks for a "root" password. But, I could not login with this password. 
> The only way I could get in was to restart mysql with the 
> --skip-grant-tables option. I checked the user table, and did not find a 
> "root" user but instead a "debian-sys-maint" user. This user is required 
> for the init.d/mysql scripts to work. The password for this user is 
> found in /etc/mysql/debian.cnf. The only way I could add the root user 
> was to stop mysql, start with the --skip-grant-tables option, then 
> manually add the root user, flush privileges, and restart mysql. I don't 
> remember having this problem on Etch.
>  
> After installing mutt, I cannot read any email. I get the error "could 
> not create temporary file" when I select an email to read. The "m" 
> option returns "/tmp/mutt-li84-151-1000-1669-1: Permission denied (errno 
> = 13)". All I did was apt-get install mutt. do I have to set permissions 
> somewhere for it to write to /tmp?
>  
> One question. What is the password stored in the mysql tables? You say 
> in the tutorial:
> 
>     The user field will contain the part of an email address before the
>     '@'. And the password field will contain an MD5 hash of the user's
>     password. 
> 
> OK, but when I was testing the postfix installation, I was able to 
> telnet from user wayne and send an email to user mark with a bogus 
> password in the password field for mark in the virtual users table. The 
> email was stored in mark's Maildir. The scripts all work, but the 
> password seems to be superfluous.
>  
> Postfix does not use maildir automatically, but mbox. You don't mention 
> either one, so are you assuming the user wants mbox instead of maildir? 
>  From my reading, maildir is perhaps a little better. If I am stepping 
> into a "religious war" here, please just say so and we need not discuss 
> it further! :-) I set up my postifx installation to use maildir by 
> personal choice.
>  
> One concern I have is whether the "out of the box" installation of 
> postfix is relay proof. I know it can send email from the outside world, 
> but does one have to make any configuration changes to prevent the 
> server from becoming an unwitting email relay for spammers to use? I 
> don't think it does because I tried to telnet in from a computer on the 
> Internet and I could not. Also, in the logs it says "relay=local". You 
> may want to add a note about this in the tutorial.
>  
> Anyway, with only a few bumps in the road, I believe I have postfix and 
> mysql working and talking to each other. Great job so far!!!
>  
> Mark
> 
> 
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The fact that your mysql install fails is probably due to an unclean base system install.

complain to your webhost about it.


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