How to Fix Postfix Error: status=bounced (mail for twosmallcoins.com loops back to myself)

After I installed Postfix on my Fedora Linux machine, I realized that my local emails (i.e. logwatch) stopped delivering. Outside emails worked okay.

Diagnose Local Postfix Problems

# echo foo | /usr/sbin/sendmail -f root root && tail -f /var/log/maillog

———————————

May 21 15:26:22 myserver postfix/smtp[28805]: warning: host twosmallcoins.com[76.14.81.68]:25 replied to HELO/EHLO with my own hostname mail.twosmallcoins.com

May 21 15:26:22 myserver postfix/smtp[28805]: DA2761B8158: to=<root@twosmallcoins.com>, relay=twosmallcoins.com[76.14.81.68]:25, delay=0.01, delays=0/0/0/0, dsn=5.4.6, status=bounced (mail for twosmallcoins.com loops back to myself)

———————————-

There are two key realizations here:

  1. The email is being bounced by postfix filtering. Spam often comes in by using the recipient’s server name.
  2. My local email is being routed by postfix/smtp. It should be using postfix/local.

Solution: Remove Sendmail

# rpm -e sendmail

or, since I’m using fedora:

# yum remove sendmail

#/etc/init.d/postfix restart

And I was good to go!

2 Responses to “How to Fix Postfix Error: status=bounced (mail for twosmallcoins.com loops back to myself)”

  1. Zhijun Sheng says:

    I have the same problem. However when I removed sendmail the problem still exists.

    It says:
    Feb 14 18:28:06 cl-t170-210cl postfix/smtp[4010]: 997009581E5: to=, relay=none, delay=5, delays=0.01/0/5/0, dsn=5.4.6, status=bounced (mail for muzhi.com loops back to myself)

  2. The fix for me was the domain name. I had to add the full domain name for the server to /etc/postfix/mydomains, so in Zhijun Sheng’s example, they would need to add in /etc/postfix/mydomains

    muzhi.com OK

    then run
    /usr/sbin/postmap /etc/postfix/mydomains
    hope this helps.

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