Failed to start OpenDKIM DomainKeys Identified Mail

I'm getting the same and I followed this:

https://www.linode.com/docs/email/postfix/configure-spf-and-dkim-in-postfix-on-debian-9/

I know it is Debian rather that Ubuntu, but it seems it should work the same.

System: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Your logs (the output of journalctl -xe) is not long enough to see what issue the OpenDKIM service is running into. All we can see is that systemd tried to restart the service several times and it failed.

To get more details you can do this:

• On console (ssh connection) #1 do this, it will print logs from OpenDKIM as it runs

journalctl -f -u opendkim.service

• On a second console (ssh connection) do this to restart OpenDKIM

systemctl restart opendkim.service

Now back on the first console (ssh connection) you should see enough of the logs to know why the service is failing to start.

I had to change permissions on /var/spool/

and I had two inet_listener pointing to 995

Those got me up and running.

I know this is a super old thread, but I am having the exact same issue… unbuntu 20.04, same error:

systemd[1]: Failed to start OpenDKIM DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) Milter.

I have 20+ tabs open of similar issues, on various distros but I can't find a solution :(

I've gone over the entire install process 3 times now. All permissions are correct.

My key-test works great.

But the DKIM service just wont start.

Anyone on Ubuntu have a solution for this?

Thanks,
Seon

What does systemd(1) have to say after you try to start OpenDKIM:

sudo journalctl -xe

I've had this problem before when the directory in /var/run where OpenDKIM wants to put it's pid/socket files either didn't exist or had the wrong permissions (my /etc/default/opendkim):

# Command-line options specified here will override the contents of
# /etc/opendkim.conf. See opendkim(8) for a complete list of options.
#DAEMON_OPTS=""
# Change to /var/spool/postfix/var/run/opendkim to use a Unix socket with
# postfix in a chroot:
#RUNDIR=/var/run/opendkim
RUNDIR=/var/spool/postfix/var/run/opendkim
#
# Uncomment to specify an alternate socket
# Note that setting this will override any Socket value in opendkim.conf
# default:
SOCKET=local:$RUNDIR/opendkim.sock
# listen on all interfaces on port 54321:
#SOCKET=inet:54321
# listen on loopback on port 12345:
#SOCKET=inet:12345@localhost
# listen on 192.0.2.1 on port 12345:
#SOCKET=inet:12345@192.0.2.1
USER=opendkim
GROUP=opendkim
PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
EXTRAAFTER=
#

I use postfix(1) so the socket file has to exist in the chroot'd tree that postfix(1) knows…/var/spool/postfix. I also use a local-domain socket for performance and security…YMMV…

-- sw

Thanks stevewi :)

I actually got it working by following this guide.
https://pepipost.com/tutorials/setup-spf-and-dkim-with-postfix-on-ubuntu/

It seems there are some missing bits in the linode guide specific to Ubuntu and 20.14 with regards to the socket setup that was causing the issue.

It's all working now, so if anyone is setting OpenDKIM up with Ubuntu, that link is the guide to follow.

Cheers,
Seon

I was also getting this particular error after working through the same linuxbabe tutorial, and wanted to add what turned out to be the cause and solution in my particular case. I had inadvertently deleted the first char (a "#" making the first line a comment) of the /etc/opendkim.conf file in the last stage of the tutorial (the section titled "").

I suspect there are many ways for this error message to be elicited, and just wanted to put in my 2 cents that the linuxbabe tutorial remains sound, and to agree with @stevewi recommendations about employing diagnostics to investigate the point of failure if this error comes up.

I took a look at the pepipost tutorial cited in the previous reply. It appears to be a cribbed rewrite of linuxbabe's tutorial. Shame they didn't give any credit to the original author. Also, linuxbabe actually answers questions on her tutorial thread.