Sendmail will not start on Slackware 10.2

dhupke · 08-22-2008, 02:49 PM

I'm unable to get sendmail started on my Slackware 10.2 box. Sendmail process was running, but now for some reason it's defunct.

Here's what I get when I try to start sendmail:

/etc/rc.d/rc.sendmail start

Starting sendmail MTA daemon: /usr/sbin/sendmail -L sm-mta -bd -q25m
451 4.0.0 /etc/mail/sendmail.cf: line 86: fileclass: cannot open '/etc/mail/loca l-host-names': Group writable directory
451 4.0.0 /etc/mail/sendmail.cf: line 585: fileclass: cannot open '/etc/mail/tru sted-users': Group writable directory
Starting sendmail MSP queue runner: /usr/sbin/sendmail -L sm-msp-queue -Ac -q25m

I've compared directory permissions to another Slackware box and everyhthing looks the same to me...

Any help would be appreciated.

Tinkster · 08-22-2008, 03:03 PM

I've had a similar issue the other day, and even after
taking group-writeable away from /etc sendmail was still
giving the same error. I ended up with an upgradepkg --reinstall
which seemed to fix the complaints. Very odd. And that
was with Slack 12.1, btw, not 10.2 ...

dhupke · 08-22-2008, 03:55 PM

After I posted this I realized that I was looking at the wrong box. The Slackware box I'm having trouble with is v.11.0, running Sendmail v.8.13.8.

Problem is, I'm a total Noobie and don't know the correct syntax of the command upgradepkg --reinstall ??? What is the location of the sendmail package that I need to upgrade if it was initially installed with Slackware 11?

thanks for any help.

Tinkster · 08-22-2008, 03:59 PM

It would be on the CD1. But you may want to check for fixes online,
Slack11 is a tad old ... http://www.slackware.com/getslack

Find the closest mirror, go to patches, packages and grab anything
you know to have installed ...

Cheers,
Tink

dhupke · 08-22-2008, 04:03 PM

when I run upgradepkg do I need to specify the old sendmail.tgz file or just the one I'm upgrading to?

thanks

Tinkster · 08-22-2008, 04:10 PM

The latter ...

upgradepkg needs to be pointed at the file you want
to use for the upgrade-process.

dhupke · 08-25-2008, 07:31 AM

That took care of the problem... Thanks a bunch.

Dave

Tinkster · 08-25-2008, 12:56 PM

Glad it fixed it - but I'd rather understand WHY this happens :}

Cheers,
Tink

trickykid · 08-25-2008, 02:11 PM

/etc/mail should be owned by root:root by default and it should have permissions 755 or -rwx-r-xr-x

The remaining default files should have these permissions:

Code:

-rw-r--r--  1 root root   486 May 13  2003 Makefile
-rw-r-----  1 root root     0 Jun  1  2002 access
-rw-r-----  1 root root   12K May  4  2003 access.db
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   701 May 14 06:16 aliases
-rw-r-----  1 root smmsp  12K May  4  2003 aliases.db
-rw-r--r--  1 root root     0 May  4  2003 domaintable
-rw-r-----  1 root root   12K May  4  2003 domaintable.db
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  5.5K Sep 30  2006 helpfile
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    45 May  4  2003 local-host-names
-rw-r--r--  1 root root     0 May  4  2003 mailertable
-rw-r-----  1 root root   12K May  4  2003 mailertable.db
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   57K Sep 17  2003 sendmail.cf
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   59K Sep 30  2006 sendmail.cf.new
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   728 Aug 24 23:10 statistics
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   38K Sep 17  2003 submit.cf
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   41K Sep 30  2006 submit.cf.new
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    63 May  4  2003 trusted-users
-rw-r--r--  1 root root     0 May  4  2003 virtusertable
-rw-r-----  1 root root   12K May  4  2003 virtusertable.db

I tested this by changing /etc/mail to 775 and got exact error described above, changed back to 755 and all was well. You may want to double check next this time occurs. The error to me indicates exactly what is described.

Now it's time to drop sendmail and install/configure Postfix instead

Tinkster · 08-25-2008, 03:27 PM

Well the thing is that on my system it made no difference. The perms
were as expected, and it kept swearing at me even after I had made
/etc have no perms for group. After a re-install the problem went
away, oddly enough.

But I second the postfix notion, it's much nicer to configure, and
far less cryptic in its errors :}

trickykid · 08-25-2008, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tinkster

Well the thing is that on my system it made no difference. The perms
were as expected, and it kept swearing at me even after I had made
/etc have no perms for group. After a re-install the problem went
away, oddly enough.

Now's a good time to quit smoking crack!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tinkster

But I second the postfix notion, it's much nicer to configure, and
far less cryptic in its errors :}

Yes, yes it is.

Tinkster · 08-25-2008, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trickykid

Now's a good time to quit smoking crack! ;)

I gave that up when you were still shitting your nappies, kid ;D

gilead · 08-25-2008, 06:17 PM

This could be because sendmail checks all of the directories in that path, including "/". You should have the following permissions for the error to stop:

Code:

ls -ld / /etc /etc/mail
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2008-08-06 06:26 /
drwxr-xr-x 63 root root 4096 2008-08-24 05:02 /etc
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 2008-08-16 12:03 /etc/mail

I've had that error before when an incorrectly packaged application made "/" 0775 instead of 0755.

Tinkster · 08-25-2008, 06:47 PM

Unnnf ... :D Should have checked that, huh ..