Software center - mail on updates available has stopped

Support
#1

NethServer Version: 7.9.2009
Module: Antivirus, Bandwidth monitor, Collectd Charts, Email, Fail2ban, Firewall, VPN, Web Proxy & Filter, Web server, Webmail

Hello to all,

since Feb 2021 we have updated NS to 7.9.2009 & we had a subscription (Crostino). But from then I don’t get any mails from Software center, if there are updates available…
The checkbox in Software center configuration “Mail to System Admin” is checked. Other Mails to root/ admin are working, so I think the mail system is ready and works… We have also about 50 mail users. All mails from/ to users are working too - no errors.
What can I do? Can anyone give me some suggestions/ hints?
Thanks in advance

#2

Messages stopped being received since subscription?

#3

Yes, this is how it looks to me… but only from modul Software updates… Mails from Fail2bon or Anacron are working

#4

As my perspective is something to expect. Updates are automated -> no email about “software updates available”.

Unless you want some…

#5

Hmm, there are 2 options at “Software center configuration”: 1) Download 2) Download and install.
My selection ist 1) (only download). I have had bad experiences with full automatic updates…

#6

I can understand, it happened with me also. But don’t forget that you’re paying for delayed updates, after the community also used it and reported eventual issues.

1 Like
#7

So what is the result? I can’t change anything, it is what it is. I won’t get any mails from Software center?
I don’t really like this behaviour… :thinking:

#8

Only if you set them to be. Automatic updates don’t come with the subscription.

#9

Some additional information:
Last mail from NS regarding updates I’ve received on 09. Feb 21 from user ‘root’ with subject line “Yum: Updates Available on mail@xxx.de”. After that day we buyed & installed a subscritption und made update to NS 7.9.
Is there a way to reactivate this behaviour? Possibly configuration via the console (not from the cockpit menu)? Are cron or yum involved here?

#10

The subscription doesn’t suppress any mail and yes, it’s something with yum-cron.
When yum-cron cron generates some output, cron will send the mail: I have plenty of them on my inbox from machines with subscriptions.

Take a look at yum-cron config, what’s the output of grep email /etc/yum/yum-cron.conf?

#11

Hi @giacomo,
the output of your command is

# How to send messages.  Valid options are stdio and email.  If
# to have cron send the messages.  If emit_via includes email, this
# program will send email itself according to the configured options.
emit_via = email
[email]
# The address to send email messages from.
email_from = root@xxx-yyy.de
email_to = root@xxx-yyy.de m.matyssek@xxx-yyy.de
# Name of the host to connect to to send email messages.
email_host = localhost

Inside the folder /etc/yum/ I see two config files, yum-cron.conf and yum-cron-hourly.conf.
I have edited the file yum-cron-hourly.conf to to this:

…
#update_messages = no
update_messages = yes
…
#emit_via = stdio
emit_via = email
…

Don’t know about the purpose of the second file… I am waiting for the next updates to see, if anything has changed in behaviour. :slightly_smiling_face:

#12

So everything is in place to send mails.

In case you will not receive notifications, you should inspect the mail server log.

#13

OK, I will report results here…

1 Like
#14

Good morning to all!
New results from me: I did not receive mail from new updates, which are available on my NS.
I wonder if the cron job for yum updates is active… I should check this.
My log files are quite large, what should i look for to find failures in cron or yum regarding not sending mails if updates available?

#15

Assuming updates are involved daily I’ve looked into folder /etc/cron.daily. There exists the file 0yum-daily.cron. Inside this file exec /usr/sbin/yum-cron is called. So far so good, but which config file is used for this call? In the web I have seen something like this:

exec /usr/sbin/yum-cron /etc/yum/yum-cron-hourly.conf

Does NethServer need a parameter (config file) for calling yum-cron?
If so, which config file?

  1. /etc/yum/yum-cron.conf
  2. /etc/yum/yum-cron-hourly.conf
    or
  3. /etc/yum.conf

In the other hand- which is the default configuration?

#16

Hi @giacomo,

may be this is the problem:
https://mensmaximus.de/blog/yum-cron-sendet-keine-emails-mehr/

It is something with coding in US-ASCII / UTF8…
What do you think?

#17

This one: /etc/yum/yum-cron.conf

No.

yum-cron-hourly is disabled, yum-cron (daily) is enabled.

I dot not think so: If yum-cron crashes, the output is catched by cron an sent by mail.

Search for mail sent by root:

grep root@$(hostname -d) /var/log/maillog
#18

I’ve got it!! Here is the solution:

First I have edited the file /etc/yum/yum-cron.conf to change parameter "random_sleep = 360" into "random_sleep = 0" (for test purposes only!).
After that I called yum-cron manually in a console with result:

Failed to send an email to localhost: {‘root@xxx-yyy.de’: (504, ‘5.5.2 : Sender address rejected: need fully-qualified address’)}

So the fact is yum-cron needs a fully-qualified address with myhost.mydomain.TLD!

After changing…
email_from = root@xxx-yyy.de to email_from = root@mail.xxx-yyy.de
and
email_to = root@xxx-yyy.de to email_to = root@mail.xxx-yyy.de

… I receive mails from yum-cron.

Last thing I would like to do is making scripts / templates for automation…
Any hints for me which templates I have to add…?

#19

@giacomo
thank you for your effort!

#20

You should configure a correct domain name.

Eventually you can create a template-custom for /etc/e-smith/templates/etc/yum/yum-cron.conf/30email