Last Modified: Oct 07, 2023
Affected Product(s):
BIG-IP All
Known Affected Versions:
12.0.0, 12.0.0 HF1, 12.1.0 HF1, 12.0.0 HF2, 12.1.0 HF2, 12.0.0 HF3, 12.0.0 HF4, 12.1.1 HF1, 12.1.1 HF2, 12.1.2 HF1, 12.1.2 HF2, 12.1.0, 12.1.1, 12.1.2, 13.0.0, 13.0.0 HF1, 13.0.0 HF2, 13.0.0 HF3
Fixed In:
14.1.0, 13.1.0, 13.0.1, 12.1.3
Opened: Feb 14, 2017 Severity: 4-Minor Related Article:
K09554025
Entries in /var/log/maillog similar to the following: err sSMTP[25793]: Unable to connect to "localhost" port 25.
Error messages logged to /var/log/maillog. Note that the maillog file is rotated so it doesn't fill up the /var/log volume.
This happens when certain crontab configuration files do not specify MAILTO="" at the top, and some of the scripts appearing in those files output something to STDOUT or STDERR. This causes the system to try to send an email with that output, which will fail when ssmtp is not configured to use a valid mailhost.
1) Run the "crontab -e -u root" command; this will open the root user's crontab configuration in your default text editor. 2) Move the MAILTO="" line to the top of the file, right under the "# cron tab for root" banner. 3) Save the file and exit the text editor to install the root user's new crontab configuration. 4) Using a text editor of your choice, replace MAILTO=root with MAILTO="" in the /etc/crontab file. 5) Using a text editor of your choice, replace MAILTO=root with MAILTO="" in the /etc/cron.d/0hourly file. 6) To verify that MAILTO=root does not appear anywhere else, run the following command: grep -i -r mailto /etc/cron*. 7) If the previous command shows MAILTO=root still appears in some files, also modify those file so that MAILTO=root becomes MAILTO="".
The crontab configuration files now specify MAILTO="" at the top, so the /var/log/maillog errors no longer occur.