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user3413723 avatar Server

mail works, but sendmail doesn't! (Postfix)

ph flag
user3413723

I installed postfix on a server and when I send an email with the sendmail command it doesn't get delivered, but when I send with the mail command it does get delivered. What's worse, postfix logs claim it got delivered when using:

This is what the logs show for echo "test email" | sendmail sendmail@mailinator.com

Sep  4 14:33:03 howtocode1 postfix/pickup[271977]: 38418406E2: uid=0 from=<root>
Sep  4 14:33:03 howtocode1 postfix/cleanup[272164]: 38418406E2: message-id=<20210904143303.38418406E2@codingschool.tk>
Sep  4 14:33:03 howtocode1 postfix/qmgr[231761]: 38418406E2: from=<root@codingschool.tk>, size=295, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Sep  4 14:33:03 howtocode1 postfix/smtp[272166]: 38418406E2: to=<sendmail@mailinator.com>, relay=mail2.mailinator.com[45.33.83.75]:25, delay=0.06, delays=0.03/0.01/0.01/0.01, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 Ok)
Sep  4 14:33:03 howtocode1 postfix/qmgr[231761]: 38418406E2: removed

Obviously it looks right. But no mail ever gets delivered. But this one: echo "test email 2" | mail bobo@mailinator.com works great! The mail gets sent!

So I don't understand why in the world them mail command works, but not sendmail. Any idea?

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Michael Hampton avatar
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Michael Hampton
`sendmail` is not intended for interactive use. You're meant to use `mail`.
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user3413723 avatar
ph flag
user3413723
@MichaelHampton but why doesn't it work? Do you have any idea what's going on? I read the man page and it seems like it's supposed to work.
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Michael Hampton avatar
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Michael Hampton
The command `sendmail` itself is designed for _other programs_ to send mail. You can certainly feed it the right options to get it to work, but if you're doing something interactively you really should instead use `mail` which is designed for that purpose.
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Lutz Willek

Ok, let's test it direct:

$ host -t mx mailinator.com
mailinator.com mail is handled by 1 mail.mailinator.com.
mailinator.com mail is handled by 1 mail2.mailinator.com.

➜  ~ telnet mail.mailinator.com 25
Trying 23.239.11.30...
Connected to mail.mailinator.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 mail.mailinator.com ESMTP Postfix
EHLO LutzWillek
250-mail.mailinator.com
250-8BITMIME
250-STARTTLS
250 Ok
MAIL FROM:<root@codingschool.tk>
250 Ok
RCPT TO:<sendmail@mailinator.com>
250 Ok
DATA
354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
Subject: Test from command line

Hello. This is a test message.
.
250 Ok
Connection closed by foreign host.

This works, as the message can be seen in https://www.mailinator.com/v4/public/inboxes.jsp?to=sendmail

Your log shows that the message with id 38418406Ehas been sent as well, and that the remote server accepted this mail.

So just try it again, it will work.

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user3413723 avatar Server
ph flag
user3413723

Ok this is the weirderst thing ever. This does not work:

echo "Subject: 1hello people" | sendmail bobo@mailinator.com

But this works:

echo "Subject: hello people
>this is the body" | sendmail bobo@mailinator.com

So for some reason if there is no body, just a subject, it does not work. It claims it got sent, but somehow it isn't accepted or something. I tried sending to other places besides mailinator and had the same issue.

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