DNS Issues

[Mopquill]

I seem to be having some sort of problem with my DNS. I'm almost certain I set everything up correctly. It was working on my old VPS, and now that I'm on a different machine (different IPs), it doesn't seem to be. I ran the IP-changing script in /usr/local/directadmin/scripts/ , and my IP seems to be right everywhere it needs to be.

I imagine some setting is wrong. I appreciate any help I can get. Let me know what information you need and I'll post it.

Check this to see the problem I'm seeing: http://www.intodns.com/emulysianfields.com

[nobaloney]

The errors are very specific. Since you didn't tell us your old IP#s and your new one's it's impossible to check further.

Jeff

[Mopquill]

Ah, sorry. My old IPs were:

ns1.emulysianfields.com - 216.244.65.187
ns2.emulysianfields.com - 216.244.65.188

The new ones are:

ns1.emulysianfields.com - 64.120.5.242
ns2.emulysianfields.com - 64.120.5.253

Sorry. I've had so much information in my head, I couldn't think of what I needed to post. Again, if you need anything else, please let me know. And thanks for taking the time. :)

[Mopquill]

Rather than try to do anything manually, I re-copied my directadmin settings per this thread (http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1489), and then ran ipswap.sh .

Now, when I click "IP Management" the status says "Error". I'm more confident that my other settings are correct. My instinct would be to edit the files in /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/ to have what they should, but, manual-editing seems to break DA stuff, so, I'll await further instruction.

All of my A/NS records appear to be in order though, aside from the nameservers themselves being missing from the Reseller > Nameservers. I don't know if I can "add" nameservers to error'd IP addresses, and I'm not sure if I should try.

Any help would be much appreciated, I'm at wit's end, and I don't know enough. I've been searching Google and this site for the past 72 hours or so.

[daveyw]

Maybe you can better contact DirectAdmin Staff, for the 'Error'. Or wait until they post here

[Mopquill]

Maybe you can better contact DirectAdmin Staff, for the 'Error'. Or wait until they post here
I don't know how. I have a VPS, and all I have from my host is my license info so I could get everything set up. I'll look around for it though. If I do figured this out, I'll post here so I can hopefully help someone else with this problem. :p

[Mopquill]

(I'll still take any help I can get, no answer from the email yet, and I sent it shortly after posting here)

[DirectAdmin Support]

Hello,

1) Any "Error" in the Admin Level -> IP Manager would be caused by failure to read in the ip file.

- check /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ip.list, ensure your IPs are listed correctly there.
- check /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/1.2.3.4 for each IP to ensure that the IP file exists. In those files should be a "status" value. There should only be 1 "status=server". The rest should be "status=owned", "status=shared", or "status=free".. with variations of each values depend on the use.

2) As for 1.36.0, there is a bug in the ipswap.sh where it's not swapping the new multi-ip files. An update ipswap.sh is here, which can be updated as follows, followed by running the ipswap.sh script again.
cd /usr/local/directadmin/scripts
wget -O ipswap.sh http://files.directadmin.com/services/all/ipswap.sh

3) As for the domain itself, I'm seeing this error
DNS servers responded ERROR: One or more of your nameservers did not respond:
The ones that did not responded are:
64.120.5.253 64.120.5.242which is basically saying that those IPs are not responding to any dns requests. This could mean the IPs don't exist on your server, named isn't running, or there is a firewall blocking port 53. Often the firewall is to blame, so try:
/sbin/service ipstables stop
/sbin/chkconfig iptables offto ensure iptables isn't blocking port 53.

John

[Mopquill]

As per your email, I checked /sbin/ifconfig. The IPs appear to be there for me.


# /sbin/ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:138 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:138 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:11432 (11.1 KiB) TX bytes:11432 (11.1 KiB)

venet0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00 -00
inet addr:127.0.0.1 P-t-P:127.0.0.1 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.255. 255
UP BROADCAST POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:438861 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:632929 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:35745756 (34.0 MiB) TX bytes:301301486 (287.3 MiB)

venet0:0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00 -00
inet addr:64.120.5.242 P-t-P:64.120.5.242 Bcast:64.120.5.242 Mask:2 55.255.255.255
UP BROADCAST POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MTU:1500 Metric:1

venet0:1 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00 -00
inet addr:64.120.5.253 P-t-P:64.120.5.253 Bcast:64.120.5.253 Mask:2 55.255.255.255
UP BROADCAST POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MTU:1500 Metric:1


/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ip.list:

64.120.5.242
64.120.5.253



# ls /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/
64.120.5.242 64.120.5.253


nano /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/*

Contents of 64.120.5.242:

gateway=
netmask=
ns=ns1.emulysianfields.com
reseller=
status=server
value=2


Contents of 64.120.5.253 (my username removed):

gateway=
netmask=255.255.255.248
ns=ns2.emulysianfields.com
reseller=xxx
status=free
value=


I've tried editing this manually before (and got them to display correctly in DA), to fix them, but, I'm afraid to do that this time, so, again, I'll wait until someone tells me what is correct.

Here's the next steps you mentioned, though I removed my username, and the domain names that aren't emulysianfields.com or the host from the output. I don't think this hinders anything, but, if it does, I can email you the full output:

[xxx@sonata scripts]# cd /usr/local/directadmin/scripts
[xxx@sonata scripts]# wget -O ipswap.sh http://files.directadmin.com/services/all/ipswap.sh
--2010-08-31 17:45:39-- http://files.directadmin.com/services/all/ipswap.sh
Resolving files.directadmin.com... 72.35.85.222
Connecting to files.directadmin.com|72.35.85.222|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2329 (2.3K) [application/x-sh]
Saving to: `ipswap.sh'

100%[===================================================================================================================>] 2,329 --.-K/s in 0.001s

2010-08-31 17:45:40 (3.63 MB/s) - `ipswap.sh' saved [2329/2329]

[xxx@sonata scripts]# ./ipswap.sh 216.244.65.187 64.120.5.242
/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/216.244.65.187 does not exist. Do you want to continue anyway? (y/n) : y
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/etc/httpd/conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/etc/httpd/conf/ips.conf : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/etc/proftpd.conf : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/etc/proftpd.vhosts.conf : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/etc/hosts : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/usr/local/directadmin/scripts/setup.txt : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ip.list : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/show_all_users.cache : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
ls: /usr/local/directadmin/data/users/users: No such file or directory
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/emulysianfields.com.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/sonata.emulysianfields.com.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.co.cc.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.187 -> 64.120.5.242

*** Done swapping 216.244.65.187 to 64.120.5.242 ***

[xxx@sonata scripts]# ./ipswap.sh 216.244.65.188 64.120.5.253
/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/216.244.65.188 does not exist. Do you want to continue anyway? (y/n) : y
/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/etc/httpd/conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/etc/httpd/conf/ips.conf : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/etc/proftpd.conf : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/etc/proftpd.vhosts.conf : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/etc/hosts : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/usr/local/directadmin/scripts/setup.txt : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ip.list : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/show_all_users.cache : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
ls: /usr/local/directadmin/data/users/users: No such file or directory
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/emulysianfields.com.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/sonata.emulysianfields.com.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253
/var/named/xxx.db : 216.244.65.188 -> 64.120.5.253

*** Done swapping 216.244.65.188 to 64.120.5.253 ***


This could mean the IPs don't exist on your server
As far as I can tell from ifconfig above, they do. Right?


named isn't running
According to the Service Monitor in DA: named named (pid 3299 )

And:

[xxx@sonata scripts]# ps aux | grep named
named 3299 0.0 0.5 70808 4124 ? Ssl 05:07 0:13 named -u named
xxx 13401 0.0 0.0 3188 748 pts/0 S+ 17:55 0:00 grep named


This could mean the IPs don't exist on your server, named isn't running, or there is a firewall blocking port 53.
I did not think to check that! I'm still learning linux, I thought iptables was more like some sort of routing thing.

I figured your first line was a typo, but, I tried it just in case. It didn't work, so, I took out the "s" (The idea of horses having something to do with IPs amuses me, though).


[xxx@sonata scripts]# /sbin/service ipstables stop
ipstables: unrecognized service
[xxx@sonata scripts]# /sbin/service iptables stop
Flushing firewall rules: [ OK ]
Setting chains to policy ACCEPT: mangle filter nat [ OK ]
Unloading iptables modules: [ OK ]
[xxx@sonata scripts]# /sbin/chkconfig iptables off

Hopefully that was it, but, the IPs are still showing up as error'd in IP Management and Reseller level > Nameservers . I *think* I could fix them, but I don't know if the correct thing to do would be to edit the files in /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/ to what I think they should have or not. From the ifconfig output, I think the subnet masks should be 255.255.255.255 , but I wouldn't know what to change value, reseller, or gateway to.

Thanks very much for your help, John. =]

[floyd]

[root@super ~]# dig @64.120.5.253 emulysianfields.com

; <<>> DiG 9.3.6-P1-RedHat-9.3.6-4.P1.el5_4.2 <<>> @64.120.5.253 emulysianfields.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 51062
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;emulysianfields.com. IN A

;; Query time: 82 msec
;; SERVER: 64.120.5.253#53(64.120.5.253)
;; WHEN: Tue Aug 31 11:24:12 2010
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 37



Its like you have not added your domain to the nameserver on 64.120.5.253.

Firewall is not the issue:


[root@super ~]# nmap 64.120.5.253

Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2010-08-31 11:23 EDT
Interesting ports on 64-120-5-253.rdns.hostmist.com (64.120.5.253):
Not shown: 988 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
53/tcp open domain
80/tcp open http
110/tcp open pop3
143/tcp open imap
443/tcp open https
587/tcp open submission
993/tcp open imaps
995/tcp open pop3s
3306/tcp open mysql

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4.78 seconds

[Mopquill]

Its like you have not added your domain to the nameserver on 64.120.5.253.

Firewall is not the issue:
Hey! I appreciate you checking that stuff! I was actually thinking that debugging would be a bit easier if I had another box. :)

Anyhow, is that after I've done troubleshooting here? Whoops, didn't see the timestamp there. It would appear that was done after the changes above, so, I suspect my firewall would be off, and my nameservers would be misconfigured. Because if so, my nameservers are currently in "Error" status, as that is where all these steps have left me, and since I shut iptables off by both service and chkconfig, I imagine my firewall would be off now. It *was* on though, as it had to be shutdown, as you can see from the output above. If memory serves, chkconfig stops it from starting up in the future, as well.

Should I try fixing the nameservers by putting certain values in the files in /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/ ? Also, isn't haveing my firewall off dangerous, at least in production? If so, I'd want to turn it back on, so, how would I allow port 53 (or any ports for that matter) through it?

[floyd]

It appears you have not added emulysianfields.com via DirectAdmin yet.

Check:
/etc/named.conf
/var/named/emulysianfields.com.db


Also, isn't haveing my firewall off dangerous, at least in production?

I am not going to comment on that because my opinion is completely contrary to everybody else. Research KISS on these forums.

[Mopquill]

It appears you have not added emulysianfields.com via DirectAdmin yet.

Check:
/etc/named.conf
/var/named/emulysianfields.com.db
emulysianfields.com.db is linked to in named.conf , but as I said, there are still errors on the DA nameservers and IP page.

/etc/named.conf (irrelevant domains removed)

// generated by named-bootconf.pl

options {
directory "/var/named";
/*
* If there is a firewall between you and nameservers you want
* to talk to, you might need to uncomment the query-source
* directive below. Previous versions of BIND always asked
* questions using port 53, but BIND 8.1 uses an unprivileged
* port by default.
*/
// query-source address * port 53;

allow-transfer { none; };
allow-recursion { localnets; };
};

//
// a caching only nameserver config
//
controls {
inet 127.0.0.1 allow { localhost; } keys { rndckey; };
};
zone "." IN {
type hint;
file "named.ca";
};

zone "localhost" IN {
type master;
file "localhost.zone";
allow-update { none; };
};

zone "0.0.127.in-addr.arpa" IN {
type master;
file "named.local";
allow-update { none; };
};

include "/etc/rndc.key";

zone "sonata.emulysianfields.com" { type master; file "/var/named/sonata.emulysianfields.com.db"; };
zone "emulysianfields.com" { type master; file "/var/named/emulysianfields.com.db"; };
Might I need to un-comment that query-source line so that it knows to use 53?


/var/named/emulysianfields.com.db (irrelevant sub-domains removed)

$TTL 14400
@ IN SOA ns1.emulysianfields.com. hostmaster.emulysianfields.com. (
2010083103
14400
3600
1209600
86400 )

emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN NS ns1.emulysianfields.com.
emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN NS ns2.emulysianfields.com.

emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242
ftp 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242
localhost 14400 IN A 127.0.0.1
mail 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242
ns1.emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242
ns2.emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN A 64.120.5.253
pop 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242
smtp 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242
www 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242

emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN MX 10 mail



emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN TXT "v=spf1 a mx ip4:64.120.5.242 ~all"

Like I said, I'm reluctant to mess with the files in /ips/ lest I break something, or do something wrong.


I am not going to comment on that because my opinion is completely contrary to everybody else. Research KISS on these forums.
I have done this now. It does not look like something I'd be interested in. My old VPS didn't have a firewall at all, and I was fine, and I was told by someone that I respect that if you do everything right, you won't need a firewall. I was on a server with CSF at once point, and everything was a pain to do. I just figured I'd ask if I was in any danger by leaving iptables off like that.

[floyd]

restart named

[floyd]

What do you get with:


dig @localhost emulysianfields.com

[Mopquill]

restart named

What do you get with:


dig @localhost emulysianfields.com

[xxx@sonata scripts]# /etc/init.d/named restart
Stopping named: [ OK ]
Starting named: [ OK ]
[xxx@sonata scripts]# dig @localhost emulysianfields.com

; <<>> DiG 9.3.6-P1-RedHat-9.3.6-4.P1.el5_4.2 <<>> @localhost emulysianfields.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 40535
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;emulysianfields.com. IN A

;; Query time: 0 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Aug 31 20:47:24 2010
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 37

[nobaloney]

Your local nameserver doesn't host the zone file for emulysianfields.com. Why? I have no idea.

Check to make sure your zone file is in the right place, and is syntactically correct, and is listed in your /etc/named.conf file.

Tail your /var/log/messages file while restarting BIND to see if you've got any errors related to the domain name.

Jeff

[Mopquill]

Your local nameserver doesn't host the zone file for emulysianfields.com. Why? I have no idea.

Check to make sure your zone file is in the right place, and is syntactically correct, and is listed in your /etc/named.conf file.

Tail your /var/log/messages file while restarting BIND to see if you've got any errors related to the domain name.

Jeff
I see.

Didn't I post both above? They seem okay to me.

Ah, good advice. I didn't know what tail was, but, it seems to tell me the last 10 lines of a file. That was the right idea though, there seems to be a lot of lines like this:

Aug 31 23:48:56 sonata named[15976]: zone emulysianfields.com/IN: loading master file /var/named/emulysianfields.com.db: permission denied

What permissions should those files have, and what user should they belong to?

[Mopquill]

How's this look? :D


[xxx@sonata scripts]# dig @localhost emulysianfields.com

; <<>> DiG 9.3.6-P1-RedHat-9.3.6-4.P1.el5_4.2 <<>> @localhost emulysianfields.com
; (1 server found)
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 8585
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;emulysianfields.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN NS ns2.emulysianfields.com.
emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN NS ns1.emulysianfields.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN A 64.120.5.242
ns2.emulysianfields.com. 14400 IN A 64.120.5.253

;; Query time: 16 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Aug 31 23:58:56 2010
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 121

I did a chown -hR named:named /var/named

That actually appears to have fixed the server. My sites seem to be online now. :D

I'm going to try messing with those IP files to get directadmin to display properly, and then restart everything, but, I should be good.

Thanks very, veru much to DA Support, floyd, and jlasman. I appreciate you guys taking out the time to help a linux newbie like me. =]

[Mopquill]

I've still got a few issues here and there, but, I should be able to fix everything. The NSes are up. Thanks for that excellent advice, jlasman. :D

If anyone with similar problems wants to know anything I may have left out, PM me. =]

[nobaloney]

Looks good. tail can do much more than just show the last line of the file.

# tail -f filename
will show you filename, in real time, as it scrolls up the screen.

For more informaion on using tail, see:

$ man tail
Jeff

[Mopquill]

Looks good. tail can do much more than just show the last line of the file.

# tail -f filename
will show you filename, in real time, as it scrolls up the screen.

For more informaion on using tail, see:

$ man tail
Jeff
Ah, thanks for that. I didn't know I could do that. I used tail, saw what it was doing, and then I just nano'd the files and ctrl+v'd all the way down.

man pages never seem to help me, I have trouble understanding them. I've even tried man man, and I seem to get lost. Someone once told me that man is for reference, not tutorial. So, that might be why.

I seem to be having some other strange problem. I can't get mail. Also, I fixed all that IP stuff (as far as I know how to) in the files, and I'm still getting that "Error" status, even though my nameservers and IPs appear to be working.

As far as mail goes, when people try to send mail to anything on my server, they get a "550 550 authentication required (state 14)" error. I've tried running the ./set_permissions all command in /usr/local/directadmin/scripts/ , and I tried running ./build dovecot exim and that majordomo script in there. I can't seem to get mail to work correctly. I even deleted my main email account and recreated it, both with no errors, and I still got the problem.

Also, what should my MX record be? Should it be:

emulysianfields.com. MX 10

or

mail MX 10

or something else entirely?

Again, thanks for all of your help so far, I don't mean to keep bothering you guys, but, Google is turning up a lot of nothing for me. :-/

[nobaloney]

man pages never seem to help me, I have trouble understanding them. I've even tried man man, and I seem to get lost. Someone once told me that man is for reference, not tutorial. So, that might be why.
$man man is just as arcane as all the other man files, but you can get used to understanding them; it's only taken me years :D.

I seem to be having some other strange problem. I can't get mail. Also, I fixed all that IP stuff (as far as I know how to) in the files, and I'm still getting that "Error" status, even though my nameservers and IPs appear to be working.
Which error status; I can't take the time to read the entire thread again from the top.

As far as mail goes, when people try to send mail to anything on my server, they get a "550 550 authentication required (state 14)" error. I've tried running the ./set_permissions all command in /usr/local/directadmin/scripts/ , and I tried running ./build dovecot exim and that majordomo script in there. I can't seem to get mail to work correctly. I even deleted my main email account and recreated it, both with no errors, and I still got the problem.
Generally authentication required means the server doesn't think the domain doesn't accept mail on the server. So either people are reaching the wrong server or the server doesn't have the domain name properly set up to receive email. Since mx is pointing to the same IP# as your main site, it's more probable that the email isn't properly configured on your server.

Is the domain name and the mailbox set up through DirectAdmin?

If it's already turned on, turn on DNS access for your username, and then check MX Records at your user level DirectAdmin login, to see if the X is where it should be. If not, check the box, and save.

Also, what should my MX record be? Should it be:

emulysianfields.com. MX 10

or

mail MX 10
In your case either will work since both point to the same server. You only need one of them, and by convention we usually use mail. However this NOT the cause of your problems.

Again, thanks for all of your help so far, I don't mean to keep bothering you guys, but, Google is turning up a lot of nothing for me. :-/
Google of course doesn't search only this forum, and you'll get a lot of stuff that's just not related to DirectAdmin. You can tell google to search these forums only: just add a space, and then site:www.directadmin.com immediately after your search terms.

Jeff

[Mopquill]

$man man is just as arcane as all the other man files, but you can get used to understanding them; it's only taken me years :D.
I'm trying, believe me. XD


Which error status; I can't take the time to read the entire thread again from the top.
Ah, sorry. IP Management in Admin Level and Nameservers in Reseller Level both show my IPs/Nameservers as having the Status "Error" and nothing else. I've tried making sure they had files in /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/ips/ (they do), and that the ip.list files in both admin and my user have them, and, they do. I'm not sure what's up, but, I imagine I have to get them to show up correctly in IP Management before I can get them to show up in Nameservers.


Generally authentication required means the server doesn't think the domain doesn't accept mail on the server. So either people are reaching the wrong server or the server doesn't have the domain name properly set up to receive email. Since mx is pointing to the same IP# as your main site, it's more probable that the email isn't properly configured on your server.
Yeah, I was checking error logs and could *see* that I was being emailed by whomever with each occasion, so, it was clear that my mail was being sent around the server, and just being rejected. Why, I don't quite know.


Is the domain name and the mailbox set up through DirectAdmin?
I'm not sure. They were originally, and I tried restoring its old files, but, a lot of DirectAdmin seems confused. /etc/virtual/domains only seems to have sonata.emulysianfields.com and a domain I added yesterday in it. I have backups of /etc/ /lib/ /usr/ and /var/, so, I tried copying the info from the old one into the new one and restarting DirectAdmin, Exim, and Dovecot, but, it just seems to remove them. I've tried deleting webmaster@emulysianfields.com and recreating it, but, that doesn't seem to help.


If it's already turned on, turn on DNS access for your username, and then check MX Records at your user level DirectAdmin login, to see if the X is where it should be. If not, check the box, and save.
Oy, I didn't realize there was a toggle for that. I went in there, checked the "Local Mail Server" box, and clicked Save.

Testing now, I'm not immediately getting that 550 returned error, but, I'm not receiving the email on the other end. I imagine I'll hear it about it later, after the queue spits it back out.


In your case either will work since both point to the same server. You only need one of them, and by convention we usually use mail. However this NOT the cause of your problems.
I'll just leave it as "mail" then.


Google of course doesn't search only this forum, and you'll get a lot of stuff that's just not related to DirectAdmin. You can tell google to search these forums only: just add a space, and then site:www.directadmin.com immediately after your search terms.

Jeff
I was aware of this trick, however, I had not tried it, as much of what was coming up was on here anyhow, having prefixed the search with "directadmin". Your way, however, is pulling up a few extra thread, but, most of them seem to be about webmail or SMTP, or sending the mail. I found a single thread about what seems to be my problem here (http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8539), but, it's from 2005, and seems to have gone unresolved. So, I'd rather not try too much of what's there, in case it's outdated. But, like I said, I'm not sure how to get the entries back into my /etc/virtual/domains file. Is there some sort of script I can run that will check everything existing as far as domains and tie directadmin into them? I was simply trying to port over my old DirectAdmin settings (as per a thread on here), but, it doesn't seem to understand that it's supposed to take over.

The only thing I do manually as far as DirectAdmin's territory is concerned is the httpd.conf in my user folder (/usr/local/directadmin/data/users/<my user>/httpd.conf), and that is just a symbolic link that points to a file DA can't edit, and only because it assumes I want a www. on every single subdomain, which I don't like (www is supposed to be the subdomain for access to the site, although this use has since become unnecessary/deprecated, so, I don't get why I'd need www.example.example.com), and I don't want to have to remove the DNS entry for every single one anyhow. This is a huge digression, though.

[nobaloney]

My personal feeling is that I can't help you with these problems further except as a commercial service, logging into your server and checking whatever I need to, until I find the problem. Unfortunately perhaps for you, I charge for that. However hopefully someone else will respond based on the additional information you've supplied. If you want to contact me privately please email rather than use the forum PM, for fastest response.

Jeff

[nobaloney]

The only thing I do manually as far as DirectAdmin's territory is concerned is the httpd.conf in my user folder (/usr/local/directadmin/data/users/<my user>/httpd.conf), and that is just a symbolic link that points to a file DA can't edit, and only because it assumes I want a www. on every single subdomain, which I don't like (www is supposed to be the subdomain for access to the site, although this use has since become unnecessary/deprecated, so, I don't get why I'd need www.example.example.com), and I don't want to have to remove the DNS entry for every single one anyhow. This is a huge digression, though.
You're right it is; and it's a long runon sentence which I'm having trouble following (please excuse my dangling participle). However you should be able to change the templates for both the site-level httpd.conf file and the DNS zone files (first copying them to the custom subdirectories of course). Once you've eliminated the DNS entries for www.example.example.com which you can by customizing the zone template (as above) and rewritten all the zones, it doesn't matter if the httpd.conf file manages them, the requests won't ever hit the server.

Besides, what difference doesit make if the www entities are there?

And there are many reasons to keep them, including that the main domain for an entity should represent the entity. Should a University or a very large company really have a main domain at example.com? Many would argue not.

DirectAdmin is designed to be a shared-hosting control panel, so it must allow for other preferences than your own. As I mention above, you can change the templates.

Jeff

[Mopquill]

My personal feeling is that I can't help you with these problems further except as a commercial service, logging into your server and checking whatever I need to, until I find the problem. Unfortunately perhaps for you, I charge for that. However hopefully someone else will respond based on the additional information you've supplied. If you want to contact me privately please email rather than use the forum PM, for fastest response.

Jeff
Okay, thanks a lot for your help thus far, and I understand. I'm happy you did as much as you did. Anyhow, I don't want to have anyone do anything for me, money or not. Every problem I've ever had I knew how to fix once I had it, because I learned. That is the point of all of this. Once I learn how, I'll be able to fix these things myself, and more problems in the future will represent less of an actual problem.

Anyhow, I've mostly been waiting for DirectAdmin Support to respond to this some more (as they seemed to opt for responding here rather than email), and I didn't want to make a new thread or spam their email. I'll just be patient, while I keep trying to figure this out myself. Maybe I'll shoot them another email if I find myself still stuck.


You're right it is; and it's a long runon sentence which I'm having trouble following (please excuse my dangling participle). However you should be able to change the templates for both the site-level httpd.conf file and the DNS zone files (first copying them to the custom subdirectories of course). Once you've eliminated the DNS entries for www.example.example.com which you can by customizing the zone template (as above) and rewritten all the zones, it doesn't matter if the httpd.conf file manages them, the requests won't ever hit the server.

Besides, what difference doesit make if the www entities are there?

And there are many reasons to keep them, including that the main domain for an entity should represent the entity. Should a University or a very large company really have a main domain at example.com? Many would argue not.

DirectAdmin is designed to be a shared-hosting control panel, so it must allow for other preferences than your own. As I mention above, you can change the templates.

Jeff
You're right, and sorry for that- I do it a lot. My point is, most websites (especially nowadays) have content on example.com . I get why you'd want a www.example.com , too, and why both should mirror each other on smaller websites.

What I don't get, is why I'd want, say, www.music.example.com . I'd like music.example.com to be the only way to reach it, and having www. in front of it doesn't ever make sense. I suppose I could always keep it and just redirect it to the non-www. subdomain, but, it irks me. Anyhow, I find it better to make the entries myself, it's quicker, if nothing else.

[floyd]

What I don't get, is why I'd want, say, www.music.example.com . I'd like music.example.com to be the only way to reach it, and having www. in front of it doesn't ever make sense. I suppose I could always keep it and just redirect it to the non-www. subdomain, but, it irks me. Anyhow, I find it better to make the entries myself, it's quicker, if nothing else.

Years ago before I started including the www by default on subdomains I had some very confused customers who thought something was wrong because they could NOT get to www.music.example.com. I tried to explain to them that www was a subdomain and music was a sudomain. They didn't get it. I had to start including www even with subdomains because of customer demand.

We have to allow for a variety of preferences. If you don't link to www.music.example.com then nobody will ever know its there or use it. So what harm does it do? On the other hand it IS there for those who do want to use it.

But if you really don't want it then you can edit the templates.

[daveyw]

But if you really don't want it then you can edit the templates.Indeed, or he can overrule that it will be 'forwarded' to music.domain.tld by using mod_rewrite.

[Mopquill]

Years ago before I started including the www by default on subdomains I had some very confused customers who thought something was wrong because they could NOT get to www.music.example.com. I tried to explain to them that www was a subdomain and music was a sudomain. They didn't get it. I had to start including www even with subdomains because of customer demand.

We have to allow for a variety of preferences. If you don't link to www.music.example.com then nobody will ever know its there or use it. So what harm does it do? On the other hand it IS there for those who do want to use it.

But if you really don't want it then you can edit the templates.
Yeah, I suppose that is true. I suppose part of it is that I just want the fine-grained control over all of it, but, maybe I will pull out the templates and go over them. Where would those be located?


Indeed, or he can overrule that it will be 'forwarded' to music.domain.tld by using mod_rewrite.
Right, that is usually what I do.


Anyhow, this is all a huge digression, I still can't receive mail, and I made sure all of the domains are present in /etc/virtual/domains . It'd seem I can *send* mail just fine, and no one gets that 550 error anymore. I just don't get the emails. I'm really not sure what's up, and my research has mostly turned up problems *slightly* different than my own.

Any suggestions anyone? And, I'm going to email DirectAdmin Support and re-link him to this thread, as I think he's forgotten about it. :p

[nobaloney]

maybe I will pull out the templates and go over them. Where would those be located?
Probably in the templates directory. Look for it:

# cd /usr/local/directadmin
# find . -name templates

Any suggestions anyone? And, I'm going to email DirectAdmin Support and re-link him to this thread, as I think he's forgotten about it. :p
That would be my suggestion.

Jeff

[Mopquill]

Probably in the templates directory. Look for it:

# cd /usr/local/directadmin
# find . -name templates

That would be my suggestion.

Jeff
Ah, thanks for that. =]

Haha, I've done that. We're trying to resolve it via email. I'll post again if he tells me what it was. XD

[Mopquill]

spamd wasn't running. I had a smaller hunch earlier today that that might be it, but, I couldn't figure out what was missing.

DA Support fixed it, it was some missing Perl modules. I believe everything is now operational after the initial install, so, I'm happy.

Thanks everyone for your help. =]