[Python-talk] Troubleshooting smtp(?)

[Ben Scott]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 8:43 PM, Curtis Sandoval
<curtis.sandoval at gmail.com> wrote:
> ... python (2.5) scripts on a Linux box (Suse 10.2) for probably two
> years through cron. These scripts email me using python's smtplib ...
> ... On Monday I didn't get all of my expected messages ...
> ... have no idea how to troubleshoot [SMTP] or even
> check the message queue.

  I'm not sure which MTA SuSE is using, but if it's Sendmail, you can
check the queue with the "mailq(8)" command.  Other popular MTAs
include Postfix and Exim.

  There should be logs under /var/log/ for various things.  Look for
anything to do with mail.  Also check the log for cron, see if your
commands are actually firing.

  If all else fails, log in to the box when the command is supposed to
fire, and run a packet sniffer to watch the network traffic.  I think

	tethereal -n -i eth0 -f 'port smtp'

will do it if you don't have a lot of mail traffic.

-- Ben