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I am not really a Linux admin (mostly focused on Windows) but we do have one WebServer that runs Red Hat 6. This server has a web app that runs on ColdFusion 10 (Update 14). I generally just login to it to update. Well, last week after the Shellshock announcement I decided to update with the latest patches, the problem is that afterwards the server stopped sending emails to clients (usually receipts of transactions). I changed to different mail servers, including our local Exchange and even Amazon SES and it won't send emails. I verified with the programming team that manages the app and there are no problems within the application, in fact ColdFusion is "sending" the emails. If I reboot the server then all the emails that were "sent" are suddenly, well, sent, and it keeps sending emails for an hour or two until it suddenly stops once again. So that means its spooling all those emails somewhere but not sending them for some reason. If I open the terminal and type the "mail email@email.com" command the messages are sent without issue.

How can I verify where the problem is coming from? How to fix it? I am close to restoring the server from a tape backup from two weeks but I'd vastly prefer to fix it.

UPDATE: Coldfusion. After further verification... It says emails are being sent. In fact the spool folder in CF is empty, same as Undelivered. At least ColdFusion thinks its sending the emails without issue. Mail.log doesn't inform me of any issues.

HTTP500
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Lord Relix
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  • What level of logging do you have enabled in the CF admin? – Brad Wood Oct 20 '14 at 17:18
  • Not exactly sure what you mean (I guess the normal logging of events), but its the default settings that comes with CF plus I verified and we do scheduled tasks logging. – Lord Relix Oct 20 '14 at 17:20
  • Sounds like you have some more research. You haven't told us the version of CF you're on but check out the setting shown on this page: https://support.intranetconnections.com/entries/20529751-Troubleshooting-sent-mail-from-ColdFusion- Turn on "debug" logging, find your CF log files and get to the bottom of it. – Brad Wood Oct 20 '14 at 17:24
  • Will definitely check. Thanks. I was checking the log files before writting this (for example the mail.log) but I don't see anything out of the ordinary. Will update with appropiate CF version though, thanks. – Lord Relix Oct 20 '14 at 17:25
  • After further verification... It says emails are being sent. In fact the spool folder in CF is empty, same as Undelivered. At least ColdFusion thinks its sending the emails without issue. – Lord Relix Oct 20 '14 at 17:56
  • And what email server are you using currently? – HTTP500 Oct 20 '14 at 18:02
  • The original setting was that ColdFusion relayed the email to our local Exchange server. When the problem began I decided to change from that to Amazon SES since we are phasing out the Exchange. In SES, everytime I reboot, I notice the spike of emails being sent but after an hour or two it stops, which means the webserver isn't sending emails. I checked the CF Mail Log and there aren't problems frm there, so I am thinking it must be related to something in Linux. – Lord Relix Oct 20 '14 at 18:27
  • If mail.log says the messages have been sent and the spool folder is empty then I don't see how there can be an issue on the Linux side (as CF is connecting directly to the external SMTP server). Do you have access to the logs on the SMTP server? Could some network level anti-virus system be diverting SMTP connections to another server which is causing the delay. What happens if you try connecting to the SMTP server by hand using telnet or nc? Does that get you the server you expect? – Paul Haldane Oct 20 '14 at 23:26
  • After struggling ant not finding an issue I decided to up a restore of a previous image. No data was lost thankfully. The problem seemed to arise after a applied update to Red Hat. – Lord Relix Oct 22 '14 at 02:06
  • Are you sure you are spooling to disk? Lookin in the spool directory is only relevant if you ae spooling to disk. If you are spooling to memory then something else is going on - probably resolution or authenticaion issues since they flood out as soon as you restart. Post all the settings in your CF admin for mail. Have you tried restarting CF instead of rebooting the whole server? – Mark A Kruger Nov 05 '14 at 23:21

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