Posts Tagged ‘logcheck’

Install Sendmail mail server on Debian GNU / Linux

Sunday, March 31st, 2013

Installing sendmail on Debian Linux is something not so common these days. As sendmail has been overshadowed by his competitors Exim and Postfix. By default Debian Linux comes with Exim (light) installed as Exim is tiny and perfectly suitable for dealing with small and mid-sized SMTP needs. The reason why sendmail has been moved out by its competitors over the last 15 years is sendmail configuration is one big hell and besides that sendmail has been well known for its many security remote exploit holes – making it a famous target for crackers. Well anyways in some cases sendmail is necessary to install especially if you have a client which wants to have it set up. In this short article I will show how very basic sendmail installation on Debian host is done.

 blackstar:~# apt-get install sendmail-bin sensible-mda

Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information… Done

The following extra packages will be installed:
  sendmail-base sendmail-cf sensible-mda
Suggested packages:
  sendmail-doc logcheck resolvconf sasl2-bin
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  exim4 exim4-base exim4-config exim4-daemon-light sa-exim task-mail-server
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  sendmail-base sendmail-bin sendmail-cf
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 6 to remove and 26 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,626 kB of archives.
After this operation, 592 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Get:1 http://ftp.bg.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main sendmail-base all 8.14.4-2.1 [362 kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.bg.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main sendmail-cf all 8.14.4-2.1 [300 kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.bg.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main sendmail-bin i386 8.14.4-2.1 [964 kB]
Fetched 1,626 kB in 0s (3,057 kB/s)  
(Reading database … 199577 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing task-mail-server …
Selecting previously unselected package sendmail-base.
(Reading database … 199577 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking sendmail-base (from …/sendmail-base_8.14.4-2.1_all.deb) …
Selecting previously unselected package sendmail-cf.
Unpacking sendmail-cf (from …/sendmail-cf_8.14.4-2.1_all.deb) …
Processing triggers for man-db …
(Reading database … 199939 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing sa-exim …
[….] Reloading exim4 configuration files:invoke-rc.d: initscript exim4, action "reload" failed.
dpkg: exim4-config: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you requested:
 exim4-base depends on exim4-config (>= 4.30) | exim4-config-2; however:
  Package exim4-config is to be removed.
  Package exim4-config-2 is not installed.
  Package exim4-config which provides exim4-config-2 is to be removed.
 exim4-base depends on exim4-config (>= 4.30) | exim4-config-2; however:
  Package exim4-config is to be removed.
  Package exim4-config-2 is not installed.
  Package exim4-config which provides exim4-config-2 is to be removed.

Removing exim4-config …
dpkg: exim4-daemon-light: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you requested:
 exim4 depends on exim4-daemon-light | exim4-daemon-heavy | exim4-daemon-custom; however:
  Package exim4-daemon-light is to be removed.
  Package exim4-daemon-heavy is not installed.
  Package exim4-daemon-custom is not installed.
 bsd-mailx depends on default-mta | mail-transport-agent; however:
  Package default-mta is not installed.
  Package exim4-daemon-light which provides default-mta is to be removed.
  Package mail-transport-agent is not installed.
  Package exim4-daemon-light which provides mail-transport-agent is to be removed.
 bsd-mailx depends on default-mta | mail-transport-agent; however:
  Package default-mta is not installed.
  Package exim4-daemon-light which provides default-mta is to be removed.
  Package mail-transport-agent is not installed.
  Package exim4-daemon-light which provides mail-transport-agent is to be removed.

Removing exim4-daemon-light …
[ ok ] Stopping MTA:.
ALERT: exim paniclog /var/log/exim4/paniclog has non-zero size, mail system possibly broken
dpkg: exim4-base: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you requested:
 exim4 depends on exim4-base (>= 4.80).

Removing exim4-base …
Processing triggers for man-db …
Selecting previously unselected package sendmail-bin.
(Reading database … 199786 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking sendmail-bin (from …/sendmail-bin_8.14.4-2.1_i386.deb) …
Processing triggers for man-db …
Setting up sendmail-base (8.14.4-2.1) …
adduser: Warning: The home directory `/var/lib/sendmail' does not belong to the user you are currently creating.
Setting up sendmail-cf (8.14.4-2.1) …
Setting up sendmail-bin (8.14.4-2.1) …
update-rc.d: warning: default stop runlevel arguments (0 1 6) do not match sendmail Default-Stop values (1)
update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/sm.bin/sendmail to provide /usr/sbin/sendmail-mta (sendmail-mta) in auto mode
update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/sm.bin/sendmail to provide /usr/sbin/sendmail-msp (sendmail-msp) in auto mode
update-alternatives: warning: not replacing /usr/share/man/man8/sendmail.8.gz with a link

You are doing a new install, or have erased /etc/mail/sendmail.mc.
If you've accidentaly erased /etc/mail/sendmail.mc, check /var/backups.

I am creating a safe, default sendmail.mc for you and you can
run sendmailconfig later if you need to change the defaults.

[ ok ] Stopping Mail Transport Agent (MTA): sendmail.
Updating sendmail environment …
Validating configuration.
Writing configuration to /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Writing /etc/cron.d/sendmail.
Could not open /etc/mail/databases(No such file or directory), creating it.
Could not open /etc/mail/sendmail.mc(No such file or directory)
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Writing configuration to /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Writing /etc/cron.d/sendmail.
Turning off Host Status collection
Could not open /etc/mail/databases(No such file or directory), creating it.
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Creating /etc/mail/databases…

Checking filesystem, this may take some time – it will not hang!
  …   Done.
 
Checking for installed MDAs…
Adding link for newly extant program (mail.local)
Adding link for newly extant program (procmail)
sasl2-bin not installed, not configuring sendmail support.

To enable sendmail SASL2 support at a later date, invoke "/usr/share/sendmail/update_auth"

 
Creating/Updating SSL(for TLS) information
Creating /etc/mail/tls/starttls.m4…
Creating SSL certificates for sendmail.
Generating DSA parameters, 2048 bit long prime
This could take some time
…+………………..+.+..+..+++
..+.+………….+.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++*
Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus
………………..+++
…………………+++
e is 65537 (0x10001)

*** *** *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** *** ***

Everything you need to support STARTTLS (encrypted mail transmission
and user authentication via certificates) is installed and configured
but is *NOT* being used.

To enable sendmail to use STARTTLS, you need to:
1) Add this line to /etc/mail/sendmail.mc and optionally
   to /etc/mail/submit.mc:
  include(`/etc/mail/tls/starttls.m4')dnl
2) Run sendmailconfig
3) Restart sendmail

 
Updating /etc/hosts.allow, adding "sendmail: all".

Please edit /etc/hosts.allow and check the rules location to
make sure your security measures have not been overridden –
it is common to move the sendmail:all line to the *end* of
the file, so your more selective rules take precedence.
Checking {sendmail,submit}.mc and related databases…
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Creating /etc/mail/databases…
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Creating /etc/mail/databases…
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Creating /etc/mail/Makefile…
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Writing configuration to /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Writing /etc/cron.d/sendmail.
Disabling HOST statistics file(/var/lib/sendmail/host_status).
Creating /etc/mail/sendmail.cf…
*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** MAILER(`local') must appear after FEATURE(`always_add_domain')*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** MAILER(`local') must appear after FEATURE(`allmasquerade')*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
 
Creating /etc/mail/submit.cf…
Informational: confCR_FILE file empty: /etc/mail/relay-domains
Warning: confCT_FILE source file not found: /etc/mail/trusted-users
 it was created
Informational: confCT_FILE file empty: /etc/mail/trusted-users
Warning: confCW_FILE source file not found: /etc/mail/local-host-names
 it was created
Warning: access_db source file not found: /etc/mail/access
 it was created
Updating /etc/mail/access…
Linking /etc/aliases to /etc/mail/aliases
Updating /etc/mail/aliases…

WARNING: local host name (blackstar) is not qualified; see cf/README: WHO AM I?
/etc/mail/aliases: 13 aliases, longest 10 bytes, 145 bytes total
 
Warning: 3 database(s) sources
    were not found, (but were created)
    please investigate.
 
Warning: These messages were issued while creating sendmail.cf
    make sure they are benign before starting sendmail!
 
Errors in generating sendmail.cf
*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** MAILER(`local') must appear after FEATURE(`always_add_domain')*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** MAILER(`local') must appear after FEATURE(`allmasquerade')*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
 
[ ok ] Starting Mail Transport Agent (MTA): sendmail.
(Reading database … 199837 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing exim4 …
 

Right after packages gets installed it is good idea to get rid of any remains of previous exim SMTP install, run;

blackstar:~# dpkg --purge exim4
blackstar:~# dpkg --purge exim4-base
blackstar:~# dpkg --purge exim4-config
blackstar:~# dpkg --purge exim4-daemon-light
blackstar:~# dpkg --purge sa-exim

blackstar:~# grep -i sendmail /etc/passwd
smmta:x:121:128:Mail Transfer Agent,,,:/var/lib/sendmail:/bin/false
smmsp:x:124:129:Mail Submission Program,,,:/var/lib/sendmail:/bin/false
blackstar:~# grep -i -E "smmta|smmsp" /etc/passwd
smmta:x:121:128:Mail Transfer Agent,,,:/var/lib/sendmail:/bin/false
smmsp:x:124:129:Mail Submission Program,,,:/var/lib/sendmail:/bin/false

Sendmail install does create two new users smmta and smmsp in /etc/passwd and /etc/group

As you see from earlier apt-get output sendmail is provided on Debian via 4 packs:

root@blackstar:~# dpkg -l |grep -i sendmail
ii  libmail-sendmail-perl                0.79.16-1                          all          Send email from a perl script
ii  sendmail-base                        8.14.4-2.1                         all          powerful, efficient, and scalable Mail Transport Agent
ii  sendmail-bin                         8.14.4-2.1                         i386         powerful, efficient, and scalable Mail Transport Agent
ii  sendmail-cf                          8.14.4-2.1                         all          powerful, efficient, and scalable Mail Transport Agent

libmail-sendmail-perl installs a perl module (class)  /usr/share/perl5/Mail/Sendmail.pm.

sendmail-bin contains main sendmail components binary files, cron bindings related to sendmail, some manual pages and creates structure necessary for sendmail to process email queue. sendmail-cf provides a multitude of sendmail configurations in macroses and few documentation files on the macros configuration. All sendmail configuration macros are stored in /usr/share/sendmail/* – there are pleny of .m4 configs so for people who never installed sendmail it is really confusing.

sendmail-base package contains some bindings on how to to log rotate sendmail log files, few more sendmail binaries who deal with sendmail architecture, few files whether sendmail is run via PPP or DHCP connection, some documentation and example files. Sendmail documentation is installed in /usr/share/doc/sendmail*,  unfortunately documentation there is scarce so for extended documentation it is good to check Sendmail's Official site

To check if sendmail is running you should have it visible  in the list of running processes;

root@blackstar:~# ps xa|grep sendmail|grep -v grep
  468 ?        Ss     0:00 sendmail: MTA: accepting connections        

Further on it should be accepting connections on localhost / 25, i.e.

root@blackstar:~# telnet localhost 25
Trying ::1...
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 blackstar ESMTP Sendmail 8.14.4/8.14.4/Debian-2.1; Sat, 30 Mar 2013 19:09:47 +0200; (No UCE/UBE) logging access from: localhost(OK)-localhost [127.0.0.1] ^]
telnet> quit
 

 

Sendmail's configuration is being generated using a macro file using a macro processor via m4 command. There are few files, used as a basis for generation the final m4 most important of course is /etc/mail/sendmail.mc and sendmail.cf  –  /etc/mail/sendmail.cf, sendmail.mc after processed with the mambo-jambo with m4 generates the complex and about 15 times larger by size sendmail.cf.
All configs related to generating files instructing how sendmail will operate are stored in /etc/mail;

blackstar:~#  ls -1
access
access.db
address.resolve
aliases
aliases.db
databases
helpfile
local-host-names
m4
Makefile
peers
sasl
sendmail.cf
sendmail.cf.errors
sendmail.conf
sendmail.mc
service.switch
service.switch-nodns
smrsh
spamassassin
submit.cf
submit.mc
tls

sendmail.cf.errors
– contains errors during processing of macros config files.

 

root@blackstar:/etc/mail# cat sendmail.cf.errors
*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** MAILER(`local') must appear after FEATURE(`always_add_domain')*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** MAILER(`local') must appear after FEATURE(`allmasquerade')*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()

This errors, are not fatal as sendmail.cf is there and sendmail is from now on ready to send mails via localhost.

To check if sendmail delivers mails onwards, use mail cmd;
 

hipo@blackstar:~$ mail -s "testing" test@www.pc-freak.net
this is a simple test email
Do you get it?
.
Cc:

To see all is fine with mail delivery check out /var/log/mail.log

blackstar:~# tail -f /var/log/mail/log
Mar 30 21:23:05 blackstar sm-msp-queue[1495]: unable to qualify my own domain name (blackstar) -- using short name
Mar 30 21:23:09 blackstar sm-mta[1499]: STARTTLS=client, relay=mail.www.pc-freak.net., version=TLSv1/SSLv3, verify=FAIL, cipher=AES256-SHA, bits=256/256
Mar 30 21:23:11 blackstar sm-mta[1524]: r2UJN8x2001524: localhost [127.0.0.1] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MTA-v4
Mar 30 21:23:13 blackstar sm-mta[1499]: r2UJKwqR001412: to=<hipo@www.pc-freak.net>, ctladdr=<root@blackstar> (0/0), delay=00:02:15, xdelay=00:00:10, mailer=esmtp, pri=210313, relay=mail.www.pc-freak.net. [83.228.93.76], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (ok 1364671405 qp 7492)
Mar 30 21:24:28 blackstar sendmail[1532]: My unqualified host name (blackstar) unknown; sleeping for retry
Mar 30 21:27:16 blackstar sendmail[1633]: My unqualified host name (blackstar) unknown; sleeping for retry

As you see there is an error in mail.log
 

blackstar sendmail[1532]: My unqualified host name (blackstar) unknown; sleeping for retry


This is because blackstar is not assigned as a a host recognized to 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts. To solve it on my host I had to change /etc/hosts which looked like so:

blackstar:~# cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1    localhost
127.0.1.1    blackstar
# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

to

blackstar:~# vim /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1    localhost localhost.localdomain blackstar
127.0.1.1    blackstar

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
 

 

Then restart sendmail to reread /etc/hosts
 

root@blackstar:/etc/mail# /etc/init.d/sendmail restart
[ ok ] Restarting Mail Transport Agent (MTA): sendmail.

 

Easy way to look for irregularities and problems in log files / Facilitate reading log files on GNU / Linux and FreeBSD

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

LogWatch logo picture check Logcheck Linux BSD look for irregularities in log files

As a System Administrator I need to check daily the log files produced on various GNU / Linux distributions or FreeBSD. This can sometimes take too much time if the old fashioned way using the normal system tools cat, less and tail etc. is used.

Reading logs one by one eats too much of my time and often as logs are reviewed in a hurry some crucial system irregularities, failed ssh or POP3 / Imap logins, filling disk spaces etc. are missed.

Therefore I decided to implement automated log parsing programs which will summary and give me an overview (helicopter view) on what were the system activities from the previous day (24h) until the moment I logged the system and issued the log analyzer program.
There are plenty of programs available out there that does “wide scale” log analysis, however there are two applications which on most GNU / Linux and BSD systems had become a de-facto standard programs to scan system log files for interesting lines.

These are:
 

  • 1. logwatchsystem log analyzer and reporter
  • 2. logcheckprogram to scan system log files for interesting lines

1. logwatch is by default installed on most of the Redhat based Linux systems (Fedora, RHEL, CentOS etc.). On Debian distributions and as far as I know (Ubuntu) and the other deb based distros logwatch is not installed by default. Most of the servers I manage these days are running Debian GNU / Linux so, to use logwatch I needed to install it from the available repository package, e.g.:

debian:~# apt-get install logwatch
...

logwatch is written in perl and with some big files to analyze, parsing them might take hell a lot of time. It does use a bunch of configuration scripts which defines how logwatch should read and parse the various services logwatch support by default. These conf scripts are also easily extensible, so if one has to analyze some undefined service in the conf files he can easily come up with a new conf script that will support the service/daemon of choice.Using logwatch is very easy, to get an overview about server system activity invoke the logwatch command:

debian:~# logwatch
################### Logwatch 7.3.6+cvs20080702-debian (07/02/08) ####################
Processing Initiated: Thu Nov 24 05:22:07 2011
Date Range Processed: yesterday
( 2011-Nov-23 )
Period is day.
Detail Level of Output: 0
Type of Output/Format: stdout / text
Logfiles for Host: debian
 ################################################# 

——————— dpkg status changes Begin ————- 

Upgraded:
libfreetype6 2.3.7-2+lenny7 => 2.3.7-2+lenny8
libfreetype6-dev 2.3.7-2+lenny7 => 2.3.7-2+lenny8

———————- dpkg status changes End ————————-

——————— httpd Begin ————————

Requests with error response codes
400 Bad Request
HTTP/1.1: 2 Time(s)
admin/scripts/setup.php: 2 Time(s)
401 Unauthorized


———————- vpopmail End ————————-

——————— Disk Space Begin ————————

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/md0 222G 58G 154G 28% /

———————- Disk Space End ————————-

###################### Logwatch End #########################

The execution might take up from 10 to 20 seconds up to 10 or 20 minutes depending on the log files size and the CPU / RAM hardware on the machine where /var/log/… logs will be analyzed.

logwatch output can be easily mailed to a custom mail address using a crontab if the server runs a properly configured SMTP server. Using a cron like:

00 5 * * * /usr/sbin/logwatch | mail -s "$(hostname) log files for $(date)"

Here is time to make a note that logwatch is ported also to FreeBSD and is available from BSD’s port tree, from a port with path:

/usr/ports/security/logcheck

2. logcheck is another handy program, which does very similar job to logwatch . The “interesting” information it returns is a bit less than compared to logwatch

The good thing about logcheck is that by default it is made to mail every 1 hour a brief data summary which might be of an interest to the sys admin.
Logcheck is available for install on RedHat distros via yum and has existing package for Debian as well as a port for FreeBSD under the port location /usr/ports/security/logcheck

To install on logcheck on Debian:

debian:~# apt-get install logcheck
...

After installation I found it wise to change the default mailing time from each and every hour to just once per day to prevent my email from overfilling with “useless” mails.

This is done by editting the default cron tab installed by the package located in /etc/cron.d/logcheck

The default file looks like so:

# /etc/cron.d/logcheck: crontab entries for the logcheck package
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
@reboot logcheck if [ -x /usr/sbin/logcheck ]; then nice -n10 /usr/sbin/logcheck -R; fi
2 * * * * logcheck if [ -x /usr/sbin/logcheck ]; then nice -n10 /usr/sbin/logcheck; fi
# EOF

To change it run only once per day its content should looks something like:

# /etc/cron.d/logcheck: crontab entries for the logcheck package
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
@reboot logcheck if [ -x /usr/sbin/logcheck ]; then nice -n10 /usr/sbin/logcheck -R; fi
2 5 * * * logcheck if [ -x /usr/sbin/logcheck ]; then nice -n10 /usr/sbin/logcheck; fi
# EOF

Altering it that way the log summary interesting info analysis will be sent on mail every day in 05:02 a.m.
Changing the default email logcheck will ship its log analyzer report emails on deb based distros is done via editting the file:

/etc/logcheck/logcheck.conf

And changing the SENDMAILTO=”” variable to point to the appropriate admin email email addr.