Can't even send mail between root and another user on my system.
'tail /var/log/maillog' just showsa bunch of connection refused errors
like this

Mar 12 07:09:43 scott sm-msp-queue[556]: i282Hifx024871: to=root, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=4+09:51:58, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=9750081, relay=[127.0.0.1], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by [127.0.0.1]
Mar 12 07:09:58 scott sendmail[560]: i2CC9wEF000560: from=root, size=39, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200403121209.i2CC9wEF000560@amnesia.fearandlearning.us>, relay=root@localhost
Mar 12 07:09:58 scott sendmail[560]: i2CC9wEF000560: to=scott, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=30033, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by [127.0.0.1]

Why isn't my server listening?

Scott

I just replicated your errors! Start sendmail up!!!
#service sendmail start
or
#/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail start

I did that. No difference. ...

[scott@amnesia scott]$ ps -ax|grep sendmail
546 ? S 0:00 [sendmail]
555 ? S 0:00 [sendmail]
623 pts/1 S 0:00 grep sendmail
[scott@amnesia scott]$ /sbin/service sendmail status
sendmail (pid 555 546) is running...
[scott@amnesia scott]$

I guess it's just not listening. Why?

have you been messing around with iptables? Also, I'd check your /etc/hosts to see if the loopback address is in there.

$ cat /etc/hosts
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

I'm scared of iptables.
...Oh yeah. localhost is there. When I telnet to it, howver, I get '
Connection refused'.

... but here's something interesting:
When I telnet from another host, to port 25 I get:
'220 amnesia.fearandlearning.us ESMTP Sendmail 8.12.8/8.12.8; Fri, 12 Mar 2004 11:37:55 -0500'

The saga continues....

I can now send mail between users. The problem was the DAEMON_OPTIONS
setting in /etc/mail/sendmail.mc:
dnl #
dnl # The following causes sendmail to only listen on the IPv4 loopback address
dnl # 127.0.0.1 and not on any other network devices. Remove the loopback
dnl # address restriction to accept email from the internet or intranet.
dnl #
DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp, Name=MTA')dnl
dnl # DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA')dnl


Note how the entry with 127.0.0.1 address is commented out. I, misunderstanding the docmentation had replaced 127.0.0.1 with my local ip addr. I dudn't understand that the address must be removed entirely form the entry.

Ok. So on to the problem(s)....

I personally was able to fix this by referencing both the 127.0.0.1 and the eth0 ip (e.g. 192.168.100.134) in the sendmail.cf file, as so:

DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=192.168.100.134, Name=MTA')dnl
DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA')dnl

run ifconfig to see what the eth0 port is

Don't forget to restart sendmail after you make the change.

good luck!!

1 members found this post helpful.

For anybody else who wants to reply: please realise that this thread is over six years old !

RHEL 5.3 is not detecting the network card of my acer inspire laptop. y??

@manurobs: do hijack a thread, especially an old one. Please start a new one.