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VCS WARNING V-16-1-17051 Notifier:Unable to connect to localhost

mikebounds
Level 6
Partner Accredited

I am getting messages:

VCS WARNING V-16-1-17031 Notifier:activated signal 6
VCS WARNING V-16-1-17051 Notifier:Unable to connect to localhost
VCS WARNING V-16-1-17036 Notifier:SMTP error 17051

in notifier-out_A.log and VCS is not sending email notifications.

Cluster has been upgraded from 5.0 to 6.1 and I have been told that email notifications were working before the upgrade.

Notifier resource:

NotifierMngr ntfr (
        SmtpServer = localhost
        SmtpFromPath = test9
        SmtpRecipients = { sysadm = Warning }
        )

I have tested email and it is working:

# telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 node1.domain.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.14.5+Sun/8.14.5; Tue, 26 Aug 2014 11:44:17 +0100 (BST)
HELO localhost
250 node1.domain.com Hello localhost [127.0.0.1], pleased to meet you
VRFY sysadm
250 2.1.5 <sysadm@node1.domain.com>
MAIL FROM: test9
250 2.1.0 test9... Sender ok
RCPT TO: sysadm
250 2.1.5 sysadm... Recipient ok
DATA
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
hello
.
250 2.0.0 s7QAiHLC024234 Message accepted for delivery
quit
221 2.0.0 node1.domain.com closing connection
Connection to localhost closed by foreign host.

Mail is in queue and gets delivered:

# ls -l /var/spool/mqueue/
total 5
-rw-------   1 root     smmsp          6 Aug 26 11:45 dfs7QAiHLC024234
-rw-------   1 root     smmsp        676 Aug 26 11:45 qfs7QAiHLC024234

I have looked at technote  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH154408  but doesn't seem relevent as I am using "localhost".

Why is notifier unable to connect to localhost - what is it trying to do - I can ping localhost and telnet to port 25 as above and sendmail is working fine.

Mike
 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

mikebounds
Level 6
Partner Accredited

I found a work-a-round - originally the localhost mail server (sendmail) would forward email to main mail server, so I have just specified main mail server as SmtpServer.

Would be interested to know why localhost did not work though.  It looks as though the code is doing some specify check to check it can connect to the mailhost and this check is NOT "telnet smtpserver 25" which is all that is required and I cannot find any documentation for the Notifier agent that the smtpserver must meet specify requirements.

Mike

View solution in original post

7 REPLIES 7

kjbss
Level 5
Partner Accredited

I've had problems configuring the NotifierMngr agent in the past too.  All I can offer is some notes for you to try -- hopefully a SMTP engineer will get back to you with answers to your specific questions -- here's some notes to try:

1. Define the SmtpServer attribute to the FQDN of the SMTP server.  This ought to be the name that the SMTP server has been configured for.

2. Define the SmtpServer attribute to the actual IP address of the SMTP server (this is effective the same as above, but remove a layer of complication, at least for testing.

3. Some email SMPT servers, like google's commercial email server offering, can be configured to  not accept an email that is not from it's configured domain.   Email's were being rejected until the SmtpFromPath was set to <anything>@<comfigured_domain>, where "comfigured_domain" is the configured (expected) domain for that SMTP server installation.  IE:

       AlertNotifier SmtpReturnPath        global     VCS_Cluster1_AlertNotifier@aCompany.co.uk

       AlertNotifier SmtpFromPath          global     VCS_Cluster1_AlertNotifier@aCompany.co.uk

(Not sure if the 'SmtpReturnPath' was necessary, but I did that too...)

 

Do not forget that it is best to restart the NotifierMngr agent whenever you change any attributes of a NotifierMngr resource.  It is sufficient just to offline and the to online the NotifierMngr resource to accomplish this.

 

 

mikebounds
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Thanks for reply Kevin,

I am using local mail server on the cluster node (and this gets redirected via an alias).  I did try entering FQDN, instead of localhost and it made no difference.  It was working in VCS 5.0 and I have used localhost at other sites (in VCS 5.x) and it has worked.

In essence email is working and I can use telnet (as in  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH23392 ) and mailx, so need to figure out what Notifier agent is trying to do.

Mike

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Probably best to log a Support call Mike?

mikebounds
Level 6
Partner Accredited

I found a work-a-round - originally the localhost mail server (sendmail) would forward email to main mail server, so I have just specified main mail server as SmtpServer.

Would be interested to know why localhost did not work though.  It looks as though the code is doing some specify check to check it can connect to the mailhost and this check is NOT "telnet smtpserver 25" which is all that is required and I cannot find any documentation for the Notifier agent that the smtpserver must meet specify requirements.

Mike

TonyGriffiths
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Hi Mike,

Which platforom was this observed on ?

thnaks

tony

mikebounds
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Solaris 10 Sparc, VCS 6.1

Mike

 

TonyGriffiths
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Hi Mike

I discussed with a colleague and ran some tests on a similar-ish config. We can observe similar symptoms (failing to connect) if the IPv6 "localhost" is present. If the entry is commented out in /etc/hosts, the problem goes away.

 

cheers

tony