URGENT: sendmail setup questions + acting up strange
 

We recently had a domain change to a server i am running now.. the webserver is running all good no problems there ...but we also need a mailserver and unfortunately i've never deal with that aspect before.. and i have to get it working asap

I followed the guide provided here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ticle&artid=50
....but it's not doing the trick so far.

So here is the deal. The box is a RedHat9 box with sendmail-8.12.8-9 ..I opened the proper ports on the firewall.. started all services.. sendmail + xinetd services like smpts and pop3s ... at one point i was able to send mail out to external email accounts but never got it to accept any incoming mail.. right now nothing is working... any help to where i can start in order to proplery configure everything is GREATLy appreciated. I'm a nub when it comes to mail servers.

Also, very strange thing.. when i started the sendmail server (for the first time) the HD activity went up quite a bit.. when i inspected the maillogs i noticed it was getting constantly slapped with this:

Dec 27 03:57:28 mydomain.net sendmail[25823]: hBRBsbCm019278: to=<root@mydomain.net >, ctladdr=<root@mydomain.net > (0/0), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=30779, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
Dec 27 03:57:28 mydomain sendmail[19278]: hBRBsbCo019278: from=<root@mydomain.net >, size=570, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200309200900.h8K9005x004372@mydomain.net>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=mydomain.net [127.0.0.1]
Dec 27 03:57:28 mydomain sm-msp-queue[19275]: h8K9005x004372: to=root, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=98+02:57:27, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=120214, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (hBRBsbCo019278 Message accepted for delivery)
Dec 27 03:57:29 mydomain sendmail[25825]: hBRBsbCo019278: to=<root@mydomain.net, ctladdr=<root@mydomain.net> (0/0), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=local, pri=30779, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent


...and as u can see, it's getting recorded few times every second NON stop.. what is that? possibly sendmail problem, configuration issue, or perhaps some kind of cracked activity..

Any help on this is greately appreciated.. thank u much..


peace.


ps. in the logs, i replaced my actually domain with "mydomain.net" to avoid any unnecessary curiosities...

Those logs look like root is sending mails to itself.
Have you checked the messages in root's mailbox (possibly /var/mail/root)?

that seems to be true... the mailbox was quite big.. i del the root mailbox and started sendmail back up again.. and within seconds it was banged with mail again... how do i stop that from happening ?

What is the content of those mails?

each email is same, seaz something among the lines: "workdir" /var/www/html/mrtg does not exist.


:confused:

Now I am pretty sure your sendmail is misconfigured, and it causes infinite mail loops for you.
I would advise you to google search the web for keywords "sendmail" and "loop" and see if you find anything useful.

I myself only have one tip: maybe you entered "root@mydomain.net" instead of "root" in one of
your mail config files? That may actually cause mail loops...

Anyway, thanks for the link; I found it very-very useful: since I already have a https server with stunnel and certificates, it made me realise how easily I could setup a secure smtp server based on that config.

I hope you will succeed, too.