[cobalt-developers] Qube 3 - relay,block email list entries & .db files

[ng@xxxxxxxx (Waillie Ng)]

Subject: Qube 3 - relay,block email list & domain name GUI interface

Sorry if I'm not posting to the correct list...

I'm having problems adding entries from within
the GUI interface for the EMAIL SERVER.  Trying
to input block email from hosts/Domains & block 
email from Users, causes my email server to crash,
i.e. it'll show status red then 15 mins. later back to
green, I believe this has to do with the fact that
the monitor only updates every 15mins from some
reading somewhere... after each SAVE... but why does
it go down at all, is sendmail being restarted or ?

At any rate, I have numerous additions and find that
it is somewhat cumbersome so in trying to perform the
command line equivalents, I'm crashing the mail server and
then all mail fails to be routed and comes back relay
denied.. and/or user unknown and after a lengthy debug
and restart session finally get mail working again, obviously
not syncing up or restarting with the proper likings... 

Are there some particular steps which must be taken so
that all stays in sync?  i.e. do I need to shutdown
smtp, pop, imap, then save or save then uncheck email server
boxes and recheck to restart or ?  Then I also get episodes
where the SAVE goes away for 5mins or so and then comes back
with a message that there is no file data to recognize
updates/changes from, etc.

On a couple occassions, I had thought that the Qube was in
such a confused state that reboot would realign all the files,
so when I tried to reboot it just hung and would not die after
10mins, so I pushed the on/off button, which is bad...

Is there a GUI bug update which I'm missing or ? 

I've been trying the following manual command sequences...

-vi access (input all that I need, a@xxxxx and b.com with appended
550 Mail rejected due to possible SPAM which is separated by a
tab).

-makemap hash access < access.db

but this command is not 100% sucessful because it comes back
with some errors about lines being too long when I tried the
btree switch parameter is comes back with more errors and dbm
does not seem to be recognized.

-now not sure if my access.db is valid or not, since I don't
know how to view it...

reading further, I found out that virtusertable also is updated
whenever I hit the GUI "Save" button after email address entries
so next I tried adding

-makemap hash virtusertable < virtusertable.db

But upon checking the sizes with the originals, they are 
quite smaller, so my map updating/remake is obviously not correct,
then when I go back to GUI method and hit save, all my intended
entries go to access~ (which are lost) but it takes quite a while
before access loads what is currently displayed in the GUI boxes 
which represents my prior to additions state and then ... finally 
creates updates from the files/formats which the email server
likes again and all is back to normal, in the meantime, mail
has been halted for 30mins-hours as I scramble to retry all the
saving & restarts of sendmail in order to properly sync up all
like before... since my sequences are all randomize, i.e. restart
sendmail, re-SAVE, etc. it is unknown what is the correct sequence
which brought everything back on line.

I guess if the *.db fies are out of whack then the email server 
does not check properly or recognizes an invalid version of the file
entries and therefore all the relaying denied & user unknown 
issues surfaces... as expected, but there has to be some easier
way or series of proper steps which I can learn to achieve such
without such downtime, especially since it appears that whenever
I'm inside the GUI trying to add a bunch of entries 50+, then 
this also sometime brings down the email server, so it
appeared...

Any help in steps as to how to achieve manual updatings for
the related /etc/mail/*.db files after vi of access file or
alias, etc. equivalent files, by command lines, if such
is possible would be greatly appreciated...  trying to achieve
SPAM blockings... and additions to blocked list grows everyday
and would like to prevent all the down time, otherwise will have
to continue putting up with the SPAM vs. down email routing times.

Thank you!

Waillie
ng@xxxxxxxx
415-550-3020