Restarting SquirrelMail from the command line

td_ma

I am still fairly new to Linux, although I have used it in school and have a good foundation in operating systems and programming. As part of my current job I have just taken on the role of Junior Network Administrator to do some simple modifications on our Linux Web Server to change some passwords for increased security. One of our 2 Linux servers is running fine after the password mods, but the other server is acting as our Mail Server and is using Squirrelmail as the Webmail interface. I changed the password for the one and only user on that system, and then rebooted the server and re-logged in as the user to get back to the command line - the same condition as it was in before modifying password - the new password worked fine, but now our email is down - inaccessible - whereas it was working fine before I did the change and rebooted. What do I need to do to get our Squirrelmail back online? Is there a daemon/service that needs to be activated after rebooting to enable the mail service or Squirrelmail to get our email accounts back online?

Also, did changing the password for the user create a conflict for the MySQL database - is there a config file for the database that contains the username and password for authentication and access to the database - would the password be the same as the password for the user to login to the command line after rebooting the server?

We are using SquirrelMail 1.4.20 Released in March 2010 on a Linux Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS system.

mfillpot

To provide better assistance we will need to know which distro you are using and what version of squirrelmail is installed.

td_ma

SquirrelMail 1.4.20 Released in March 2010

Goineasy9

If you issue one of these commands from the terminal, it should show us what distro you're using.

cat /etc/lsb-release

or

cat /etc/issue

td_ma

OK Thanks....

We are using:

Linux Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS

gomer

If you installed squirrel mail using the packages in the APT repository, then you sould be able to just execute:

sudo /etc/init.d/squirrelmail restart

you may want to double check my spelling by entering /etc/init.d/squ<TAB> ...

If you, however, downloaded the source and placed it into a directory somewhere, then it's not really something that ever needs to be restarted. What *really* needs to be restarted is the web server that's driving Squirrel Mail, which is most likely apache in your case. You can either try:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache restart

or if you did not use apt to install apache look for and run "apacehctl" and issue the "restart" parameter to it:

sudo apachectl restart.

That should do the trick. Assuming that your problems are in fact with squirrelmail. If the problems are with the underlying mail server, well ... that could get trickier. I would need to know what mail server SquirrelMail is accessing (e.g. is it a pop3 daemon on the local box, or maybe an imap server?).

As far as MySql goes, the DB keeps it's own user database. So, changing the password in /etc/passwd has no impact on MySql. You would also have to change it there and there are separate tools / procedures for doing that.

You're not using MySql as part of the e-mail system, are you? that is to say, where is the actual mail stored? Are you using an MTA modified to deliver / store mail in the database?