Confusing lines in /var/log/syslog

[Solarium]

A litte question to you guys, first off i am not sure i have a problem or something, but my logic tells me something is wrong
I tryed googling the lines i am getting in more generic form yet i had no luck hope you guys could explain.

I had some errors and wanted to view the system log, when it opened i have this line in /var/log/syslog:

Feb  6 22:17:14 cube kernel: [ 6369.852018] eth0: auto-negotiating...

The problem is that i get this message every 10 seconds ? whats up with it and what does it mean ? (i am geussing its looking for eth0 ?)

I am using a laptop with wireless connection and dont plan on using ethernet so is it possible to disable this ? ( will it be benificial to do so ?)

Another "problem" is these lines, i get them every 5 seconds:

Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[4623]: Rescanning queue.
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[4623]: Starting delivery: protocol: smtp host: mail. file: 1230744132.7157
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[21684]: smtp: Failed: Connect failed
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[4623]: Sending failed:  Host not found
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[4623]: Starting delivery: protocol: smtp host: mail. file: 1232192732.6398
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[21685]: smtp: Failed: Connect failed
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[4623]: Sending failed:  Host not found
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[4623]: Starting delivery: protocol: smtp host: mail. file: 1230573961.7777
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[21686]: smtp: Failed: Connect failed
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[4623]: Sending failed:  Host not found
Feb  6 22:24:22 cube nullmailer[4623]: Delivery complete, 3 message(s) remain.

My question would be similar as the previous one: what is nullmailer what is it checking for ? and can / should i disable it to "boost" system prefermance ?


Thank you very much for help and education.

[blueridgedog]

If you right click the network icon on the task bar, then select "edit connections" you can then select eth0 under the wired tab, then edit then uncheck "connect automatically". It may solve your issue.

As far as nullmailer, it is a simple mail exchange tool that will let your system send mail through your ISP approved mail server. You can configure it by editing the file located at: /etc/nullmailer/remotes

The configuration would look like:

mail.server.com smtp --port=25 --user=me@host --pass=changeme

The first part is your ISP's mail server, then your username and password.

I do not think it is installed by default, so a something that you have installed my have installed it as a dependency. The message indicates that it has some mail to send. If you dont' need it, you can uninstall it.

[Solarium]

Thanks for the reply !

I have tryed doing what you suggested for the eth0 i even removed it from the wired connections tab but i am still the same line every 10 seconds.

Regarding the nullmailer also had no luck, i am currently using only web mail never tryed setting up mail client on this install ... i dont even have evolution installed (i removed it, only thing thats left from it is evolution-data-server-common)
Oh and now it says 4 messages remain even tho i didnt do anything

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

[blueridgedog]

Are the messages in /var/spool/mail? Post the output of

ls /var/spool/mail

That was by best swing at eth0, I suggest you ignore it. Others may have better ideas.

[Solarium]

I see this messages thru the System log, they are displayed in /var/log/syslog (also in all the mail.*)

When did ls /var/spool/mail nothing happened it just jumped back to the $.

[blueridgedog]

Most system mail is stored in /var/spool/mail, and I was thinking that if nullmailer stored mail there, we could simply delete the messages that were pending. You can try uninstalling nullmailer if it bugs you:

apt-get --purge remove nullmailer

[Solarium]

Well that commands looks like it did the trick for the mail messages, only when running the command you gave i got this error at the end:

Removing nullmailer ...                                                            
 * Stopping mail-transfer-agent:                                                                                                                                             [ OK ] 
Purging configuration files for nullmailer ...                                                                                                                                      
dpkg - warning: while removing nullmailer, directory `/var/spool/nullmailer/queue' not empty so not removed.                                                                        
dpkg - warning: while removing nullmailer, directory `/var/spool/nullmailer' not empty so not removed.                                                                              
Processing triggers for man-db ...

After i tryed accessing the folder and it wont let me saying permission denied @_@ i tryed using sudo and such but still seems like i am locked out ... this sudo thing makes me feel sometimes like a quest at my own computer and not the owner but i am sure it cause of a little bit lack og knowledge from my side

[blueridgedog]

I am sorry, that should have been

sudo apt-get --purge remove nullmailer

Did you try that?

At least we know where the emails are:

/var/spool/nullmailer/queue

If you can't remove/purge nullmailer, can you post the output of:

ls -al /var/spool/nullmailer/queue

[Solarium]

Well when i tryed running

sudo apt-get --purge remove nullmailer

i got the message that it was not installed so it didnt remove anything.
The

ls -al /var/spool/nullmailer/queue

only worked when i did sudo other wise i got permission denied.

misha@cube:~$ sudo ls -al /var/spool/nullmailer/queue
total 24
drwxr-x--- 2 mail root 4096 2009-02-07 13:38 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 mail root 4096 2009-02-07 15:54 ..
-rw------- 1 mail root  451 2008-12-29 20:06 1230573961.7777
-rw------- 1 mail root  670 2008-12-31 19:22 1230744132.7157
-rw------- 1 mail root  459 2009-01-17 13:45 1232192732.6398
-rw------- 1 mail root  355 2009-02-07 13:38 1234006693.6769

Is there anyway for me to access that queue folder ? its getting on my nerves that i can't .... i tryed doing sudo cd /var/spool/nullmailer/queue and i get the message: cd command not found and if i do it without sudo i am getting: permission denied.

EDIT: I stoped getting the mail messages btw so it worked like i said in the priveous post i am just currious on what it was... (in case i wasnt clear)
Thank you very much for sticking with me and helping man !

[blueridgedog]

Well, there are your four messages. You can see what is in them with:

sudo cat /var/spool/nullmailer/queue | more

An easy way to get to the location as root would be to run nautilus as as sudo command,

sudo nautilus

But I don't recommend it as you could delete something else. You can do every thing you want from the terminal with sudo in this case.

It appears that the package is uninstalled.

Look at the messages using the command I gave you and if you are convinced that they are moot, you can delete them with

sudo rm /var/spool/nullmailer/queue/*