mn210
asked on
Regarding lost messages from the MAIL SERVER (Red Hat 8.0)
Hi Experts,
Recently, I have been geeting a very peculiar problem regarding the mailbox of one user. Actually, as sysadmin, I checked for his stored messages in /var/spool/mail but could find messages for just last two days. There is no problem with the mailboxes of other users and even there is sufficient disk space on the mailserver(Red Hat 8.0). Actually, the user in question sometimes log in from different places and he told me that he is not using POP client.How can I track his lost messages ? Secondly, are there any log entries created somewhere when someone stores messages locally on the machine using POP client so that it can be used as a proof for arguement ?
Thanks alot in advance for co-operation
Recently, I have been geeting a very peculiar problem regarding the mailbox of one user. Actually, as sysadmin, I checked for his stored messages in /var/spool/mail but could find messages for just last two days. There is no problem with the mailboxes of other users and even there is sufficient disk space on the mailserver(Red Hat 8.0). Actually, the user in question sometimes log in from different places and he told me that he is not using POP client.How can I track his lost messages ? Secondly, are there any log entries created somewhere when someone stores messages locally on the machine using POP client so that it can be used as a proof for arguement ?
Thanks alot in advance for co-operation
ASKER
The user have already read his messages for last couple of days and when he logged on today, he could retrieve messages for only last two days. As per his words, he is using IMAP for reading mail.
In a case like this that only affects a single user Occam's Razor would suggest that the simplest explanation is the most likely. Namely that the user ran a client MUA that downloaded and deleted mail from his/her INBOX. That could be web surfing with browser configured for POP, logging in to the mail server and check mail with "mail' or 'pine', or similar. I'd suggest that you search your logs for this username and see what you can find.
ASKER
I will check the maillog .Should I check the maillog on the mailserver or also on the webserver ?
Secondly, I want to save an archive of the messages of all users (which is about of size 180MB).As SENDMAIL deamon is running all the time, can you please advice as how can I achieve my objective ?
Secondly, I want to save an archive of the messages of all users (which is about of size 180MB).As SENDMAIL deamon is running all the time, can you please advice as how can I achieve my objective ?
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If this person isn't using POP how are they reading mail?
In the case where a user claims that they should have received a message and it's not there I check the maillog for evidence that I received something from that sender and find out what happened to it.