mail to root

[pauls at utdallas.edu]

--On September 19, 2006 9:50:18 PM -0700 jekillen <jekillen at prodigy.net> 
wrote:

> Hello again;
> I have a question about how mail from the system is generated for root.
> This question was prompted when I edited the Postfix aliases file and
> ran newaliases, then did postfix reload, assuming the mail system was
> running. I was informed that Postfix was not running.

Informed how?  What do you see in /var/log/maillog?

What does:
egrep {'error|warn|fatal|alert'} /var/log/maillog

return?

 So the question,
> how does mail generated by the system get delivered to the root account?
> Here is my motive:
> I have a server that I want to run headless. I want to be able to
> retrieve
> mail to root from another machine via ssh login (on the same private net
> work number/netmask 255.255.255.0). I cannot login to the system as
> root over ssh. I don't know if I can read root mail with su (as wheel
> group
> member). I tried this but maybe I'm not using the appropriate parameter.

ssh in to the box using your account.  Then type:
su -
Enter the root password
type:
mail
then select the number of the message you want to read.

man (1) mail

Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
The University of Texas at Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/