Strange behavior with backup mail notifications

103

Member
Jun 8, 2012
26
0
21
Cuba
Recently I have a strange behavior with backup mail notificactions, here is the log:

Code:
INFO: starting new backup job: vzdump 101 --quiet 1 --mailto myuser@mydomain --mode snapshot --compress gzip --storage backups
INFO: Starting Backup of VM 101 (openvz)
INFO: CTID 101 exist mounted running
INFO: status = running
INFO: backup mode: snapshot
INFO: ionice priority: 7
INFO: creating lvm snapshot of /dev/mapper/pve-data ('/dev/pve/vzsnap-proxmox2-0')
INFO:   Logical volume "vzsnap-proxmox2-0" created
INFO: creating archive '/mnt/pve/backups/dump/vzdump-openvz-101-2013_08_21-09_53_03.tar.gz'
INFO: Total bytes written: 455239680 (435MiB, 7.3MiB/s)
INFO: archive file size: 143MB
INFO: delete old backup '/mnt/pve/backups/dump/vzdump-openvz-101-2013_08_21-09_08_02.tar.gz'
INFO: Finished Backup of VM 101 (00:01:10)
INFO: Backup job finished successfully
sendmail:  RCPT TO:<8BITMIME@mydomain> (550 5.1.1  <8BITMIME@mydomain>: Recipient address rejected: User  unknown in virtual mailbox table)
TASK OK

Observe the recipient "sendmail: RCPT TO:<8BITMIME@mydomain>" I don't know why this is happening, I specify the recipient at backups configuration.

Best regards
 
Just tested, and the same command works here without any problem.

What is the output of

# pveversion -v
 
Have exactly the same behavior.

Client tries to send to 8BITMIME@mydomain.com instead of the real eMail address.
I've reopened the backup config window and there is still the real email entered.

Here is my environment:

root@proxmox:~# pveversion -v
proxmox-ve-2.6.32: 3.3-139 (running kernel: 2.6.32-34-pve)
pve-manager: 3.3-5 (running version: 3.3-5/bfebec03)
pve-kernel-2.6.32-34-pve: 2.6.32-139
pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve: 2.6.32-114
lvm2: 2.02.98-pve4
clvm: 2.02.98-pve4
corosync-pve: 1.4.7-1
openais-pve: 1.1.4-3
libqb0: 0.11.1-2
redhat-cluster-pve: 3.2.0-2
resource-agents-pve: 3.9.2-4
fence-agents-pve: 4.0.10-1
pve-cluster: 3.0-15
qemu-server: 3.3-3
pve-firmware: 1.1-3
libpve-common-perl: 3.0-19
libpve-access-control: 3.0-15
libpve-storage-perl: 3.0-25
pve-libspice-server1: 0.12.4-3
vncterm: 1.1-8
vzctl: 4.0-1pve6
vzprocps: 2.0.11-2
vzquota: 3.1-2
pve-qemu-kvm: 2.1-10
ksm-control-daemon: 1.1-1
glusterfs-client: 3.5.2-1

Thank you and best regards

Benjamin
 
Yes, same problem for me... it sends backup notifications to 8BITMIME instead of what is put in the config window. I have fudged it by creating an '8BITMIME' email address alias on the email server. It has also started sending 2 copies of those emails. Anyone know a fix for either of these things?! (oh, I uninstalled Postfix which was way too bloaty and installed SSMTP instead for the Proxmox server).
 
Have you tried a restart/reboot?
This was only an issue after a fresh install.
After I've rebooted the system everything was fine.
 
I have only just updated the system to latest 3.4 and rebooted anyway. However, I will try that again... not sure when, this server is mission critical :) Also, could it be (a) the fact that the emails are "Content-Type: multipart/alternative;" with HTML and my (b) swap of Postfix for SSMTP?
 
He he. Just realized I still have that issue and I solved it with an alias, too.

Thats the header:
MIME-Version: 1.0
FROM: vzdump backup tool <root>
TO: me@mydomain.de
SUBJECT: vzdump backup status (proxmox.mydomain.local) : backup successful
X-Rcpt-To: <8bitmime@mydomain.de>
Message-ID: <7e352fe1be0c424cad06b515b9dc0911@com>
X-SmarterMail-TotalSpamWeight: 0 (Authenticated)

(a) IMHO that doesn't matter. It seems to be a problem with setting the recipient address in the sender application of proxmox.
(b) I didnt replace postfix with ssmtp and still have that issue so IMHO this is not the problem.

Ben
 
Hi Ben, thanks for the snappy reply. Yeah, it's one of those "little annoying but not that important" bugs that you can fix, but I would like to know why it sends to 8bitmime though! I've spent about an hour so far on this, and got sort of close with the 8BITMIME support in Postfix. I wonder what software Proxmox uses to do the emailing... PHP, Python, PERL?
 
Good afternoon. I would like to hear from the developers - a solution to fix the problem with the second letter sent to 8bitmime@mail.** ?
 
What version do you use? Does it it still happen with 4.3? If so, please open a bug at bugzilla.proxmox.com
 
I tried to configure postfix, but I have failed. I use the notification using external smtp server when the client is authenticated in my Inbox and wrote a letter to me. I was not able to configure postfix for this warning (I tried the instructions from various sources), so I started using ssmtp. Sorry, but I can't try the notification using postfix.
 
Any news about the issue related to ssmtp sending duplicated emails to 8BITMIME@domain.tld?

The issue is due to an incompatibility between the command line parameters of sendmail/postfix and sendmail/ssmtp.

Indeed, sendmail/postfix accepts the parameter "-B 8BITMIME" while it does not exist with sendmail/ssmtp. Therefore, ssmtp considers 8BITMIME as the second email destination.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for your finding and reporting here.
We (preferring lightweight ssmtp over Postfix on our PVE installations) have been living with this odd issue for a long time across various PVE versions. Manual testing vial "mail" command on the PVE command line never shows a problem ("mail -s Testsubject michael@xxx") and these deliveries never create a duplicate email ("to 8bitmime") like the vzdump output emails unfortunately do.
Question to the PVE team: Is that parameter really required for the vzdump emails?
 
Why don't you just want to use postfix? You can even set up a relay through gmail and get notifications to your Inbox.
 
Why don't you just want to use postfix? You can even set up a relay through gmail and get notifications to your Inbox.

For efficiency reason: we spent hours trying to enable postfix and it did not work, while ssmtp worked in just 5 minutes and it is super easy to configure.

At a certain time, it is preferable to switch to an alternative solution instead of wasting time again.
 

About

The Proxmox community has been around for many years and offers help and support for Proxmox VE, Proxmox Backup Server, and Proxmox Mail Gateway.
We think our community is one of the best thanks to people like you!

Get your subscription!

The Proxmox team works very hard to make sure you are running the best software and getting stable updates and security enhancements, as well as quick enterprise support. Tens of thousands of happy customers have a Proxmox subscription. Get yours easily in our online shop.

Buy now!