Mail piping not working for helpdesk/tickets at all.

[Tim Greer]

Linux CentOS 4.5, Cpanel/WHM and Exim, email pipes fail without errors. We are testing the demo for the newest, stable WHMCS version (3.6.0).

 

PHP 5.2.5 (tried as CLI and CGI, with php -q, /usr/bin/php -q and /usr/local/bin/php -q). All versions (CGI, CLI) have ionCube PHP Loader v3.1.32 and Zend Optimizer v3.3.0. The system runs Apache 2.x w/ suphp, though that shouldn't matter for pipes.

 

The following fails:

 

support@domain.com: "| php -q /home/user/public_html/whmcs/pipe/pipe.php"

support@domain.com: "| /usr/bin/php -q /home/user/public_html/whmcs/pipe/pipe.php"

support@domain.com: "| /usr/local/bin/php -q /home/user/public_html/whmcs/pipe/pipe.php"

 

Nothing happens. I sent about two dozen test emails from local email accounts as well as off server/off network email addresses and no new tickets are opened.

 

I've tried this from registered user addresses and it doesn't make a difference. If I send an email on the local system itself to support@domain.com via "mail -s test -vvv support@domain.com", it will open a new ticket, but not from other addresses. Everything else is working fine. The permissions on the /home/user/public_html/whmcs/pipe/pipe.php file and directory are correct and executable.

 

I did finally see about 10 of 15 test emails open new tickets after hours, which would suggest that it was a delay in sending/receiving, but that was not the actual case. All other test have no results, no emails at all. The Exim mail logs show no errors, and there are no bounces. It's strange. How reliable is this helpdesk in the WHMCS system?

 

I've been testing a demo of WHMCS and thought it would be nice to have the helpdesk included, but if it's an issue at all (whatsoever, even in the slightest), then please let me know. Also, please let me know if it's possible to change the template for the WHMCS system so we can point the helpdesk/tickets links to a different 3rd party script. We don't care, but want to ensure there's not some small thing missed (I doubt it), and we just need to make sure that the helpdesk works 100%. We will otherwise consider using just WHMCS for billing and another solutions for a helpdesk.

[Tim Greer]

I've retested a few more times over the last few days and just again, and only if I do a mail command from shell will it open a new ticket. Any emails sent from valid addresses on the same system (local delivery) via SMTP never open a new ticket. (Believe me, the SMTP works fine, too, I can send email to and from addresses that have a POP mail box, including adding a POP account and keeping the forward for the support address), and only the POP works. Exim's logs show the email incoming and piped from other mail addresses, but it never opens a ticket. In other words, I know they are being immediately delivered and piped to the pipe.php script, but nothing happens. Why is this? Why does it work fine if I mail from the mail command in shell?

[Tim Greer]

And, for what it's worth, the mail command on other servers with valid addresses doesn't work either. It, too, shows in the Exim logs that the email reached the server, piped to the pip.php script and then did nothing. It would be nice if this did proper error checking so I could see what is wrong. If it matters, there is no high load or other email usage, and everything is set up fine. I find it strange that it will accept mail sent via the mail command (it's not as if I'm manually piping email to the script), and no others come in at all (other than the dozen or so out of maybe 20 on tests). If I don't get an answer pretty quick, I'll just dump the helpdesk, since it's too buggy and use a 3rd party solution. Then, we might not have much of an incentive to select WHMCS over some other solutions either. We simply can't have problems like this, especially when the scripts aren't coded to catch errors and report a problem. The silent drops are troubling. I'm hoping we're missing something and it'll work fine, because the billing, helpdesk and knowledgebase at least looks like a nice package.

[Tim Greer]

FYI, sending via sendmail from a script also works for both on and off site addresses that I declare in the CGI or PHP script. Extremely strange that sending email through the same local service from a valid mail account address fails to open a ticket (I can CC and BCC it to myself or send to other accounts fine and see it piping to the pile.php in the logs with no errors). This doesn't make sense. I really wish this pipe script wasn't encoded so I could just fix it!

[Tim Greer]

More strangeness, if I set the script to a from address at the WHMCS admin email address, it doesn't come through (which is what I was testing with locally), but it will come through if I change it to another address at that domain. So perhaps to prevent some looping mistake, you can't open a ticket as the admin address (I have all tickets opened alert me at that address, so okay). However, why do none of the test emails sent from other off server/network email addresses ever work and open a ticket, when I see they are being piped without errors in the mail logs? This is frustrating and annoying for it to just "not work" without any errors displayed or logs showing a problem, since it's clearly not working.

[Matt]

This is frustrating and annoying for it to just "not work" without any errors displayed or logs showing a problem, since it's clearly not working.

 

Try taking a look at the mail piping import logs - Utilities > Ticket Mail Import Log.

 

Regarding using your admin email, you can only respond to tickets from your admin email address, not open new ones.

 

Matt

[Tim Greer]

Okay, I see that it won't open a ticket from the admin email (saying it can't find the Ticket ID -- that was a confusing message), so as long as I know that's part of the testing issue and it's normal, I have no qualms with that. The other sender emails that didn't come in once they were piped, aren't showing as a failure or success to open a new ticket, so I'll keep looking to see if I can find anything.