Unable to send mail to same server

I just realized that one of my domains was sending mails (in PHP), but I never actually received them.

I first tested the mail adress, sending mails from a personal adress. I then tested the mail() php function, sending mail to a personal adress. But all that was working fine.

But sending mails in PHP on www.server.com to name@server.com did nothing. No mail, no error.

Damn you Gmail

After some digging it appears that local mails (to addresses on the same server) were using some sort of special local delivery.

I recently moved the whole mail handling stuff from this server to Google Apps, but I forgot to remove/edit the postfix configuration file so the local delivery routine was still up and local mails where internally routed.

So, I just had to edit the /etc/postfix/main.cf file, find the mydestinationline and remove any reference to my server here.

Then, just restart postfix by doing a

postfix restart

It still doesn't work

In my case, it still didn't change anything... That's when I understood that postfix was using a vmail mysql database to check for existing domains.

I renamed the domainfield value in the domainstable, and I can now correctly receive mails.

But, I have lost a lot of mails !

No you don't, as they are routed by the local delivery system, they should be somewhere on your hard drive. In my case it was in the /home/mailusers/ directory


Tags : #postfix, #mail

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