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I'm receiving error mails: couldn't reach your server; e-mail not sent. When I look at the Exim error logs, I see the host where I sent the mails from, followed by 'relay not permitted'. What can I do now?

Kevin
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5 Answers5

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You need to add the IP address of your host(s) to the list of the "permitted relayers".

Here is a simple article on how to configure that under Ubuntu, which has a split file type of configuration (as debian) and so differs from the official one.

Basically:

you set dc_relay_nets under update-exim4.conf.conf to the IP address of the machine you want to relay from. Then you do the split config dance and run update-exim4.conf and you should now be able to relay email from that IP (or range of IPs).

Daniele Santi
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After several hours of working in circles I stumbled upon the answer that worked for me. It didn't matter how many permutations of dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config I tried, adding in entries for dc_relay_nets or dc_relay_domains or direct edits of exim4-local-domains.txt. It turns out there is a file named exim4-relay-mail-from-this-list-of-ip-addresses.txt in /etc/exim4 that simply needs the ip address or CIDR block of the net you want to relay for (e.g. 1.2.3.0/24). Mine is set up with a single entry on each line, not a semicolon separated list like much else in exim4. A restart of exim4 was required in my case.

Now, with a name like that it would seem only a fool could miss something this obvious, but in all my internet searches this file name never once materialized and everything I read directs back to using dpkg-reconfigure and working with dc_relay_nets. Hope this helps someone else avoid lost time.

masegaloeh
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Frank Mason
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Well, exim thinks that the domain of the receiving email is not local (so it should relay it) and correctly is denying to be a relaying host. You have to add your domain to local_domains like this: domainlist local_domains = @ : localhost : mydomain.com

Jorge Nerín
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I had the same problem. I found an answer to this question here:

https://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-exim4-users/2009-April/001611.html

the solution is to edit the file update-exim4.conf.conf as follows:

dc_other_hostnames='localhost:hostname:example1.com:example2:com'

for "hostname" I entered the output of the command hostname, although I don't know if that is right. I also entered the relevant values for example1.com, and I was able to receive email when I sent it to user@example1.com.

user572821
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I also had the same problem except it was because I had dc_other_hostnames='mail.example.com' rather than dc_other_hostnames='example.com'in /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf

Rich Hildred
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  • please be more precise and add more context as currently i tend to vote to delete this comment – djdomi Nov 09 '21 at 18:34