This is a continuation of another post but has changed enough I wanted people to be able to find it easier.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=66609

I have a .procmail.rc file in /home/myaccount that I am using for auto reply.

The .forward file is calling the .procmail.rc file fine.

But I get the message bounced with this error:

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
"|exec /usr/bin/procmail"
(reason: Service unavailable)
(expanded from: <xxxxxxxxxxx>)


----- Transcript of session follows -----
smrsh: "procmail" not available for sendmail programs (stat failed)
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable

So I checked sendmail.mc and found

define(`PROCMAIL_MAILER_PATH',`/usr/bin/procmail')dnl
FEATURE(local_procmail, `',`procmail -t -Y -a $h -d $u')dnl
MAILER(procmail) dnl

that is the correct location of procmail on my system.

Any idea why Sendmail is saying Procmail is not available?

Check the permission on your .procmailrc

Some daemons require chmod 600 and won't work if the permission is set any looser than that.

few things so pick at...

it's .procmailrc not .procmail.rc

you don't need anything in your .forward

does /usr/bin/procmail actually exist?

I picked up on the .procmailrc file name issue. Corrected that.

I have tried changing permissions.

No change.

I tried an empty .forward file and the e-mail is delivered but there is no return message.

If the .forward file is not calling the procmail program how does the procmail program know to start?

whereis procmail = /usr/bin/procmail


Any other ideas?

Procmail runs as a daemon

# Common e-mail tools
sendmail - postfix - sends mail to local users (and internet when configured correctly)
fetchmail - gets mail from internet accounts (non-Hotmail type)
procmail - sorts and delivers into separate mailboxes
mutt - mail client that sucks less than all the others
Email the Linux Way
Suresh Ramasubramanian's email guide
The Linux Mail User HOWTO
The Linux Electronic Mail Administrator HOWTO
SquirrelMail web mail
Why use Hotmail when there is LinuxMail?
Gotmail, a utility to download mail from Hotmail type accounts

So I turned on Verbose in my rc file and the result was... the auto reply worked but I got this in my bounce.

What does it all mean?

----- Transcript of session follows -----
smrsh: "procmail" not available for sendmail programs (stat failed)
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable
procmail: [25316] Thu Jun 19 15:23:23 2003
procmail: Match on "^To:.*\<()realname\>"
procmail: Match on ! "(^(Mailing-List:|Precedence:.*(junk|bulk|list)|To: Multiple recipients of |(((Resent-)?(From|Sender)|X-Envelope-From):|>?From )([^>]*[^(.%@a-z0-9])?(Post(ma?(st(e?r)?|n)|office)|(send)?Mail(er)?|daemon|m(mdf|ajordomo)|n?uucp|LIST(SERV|proc)|NETSE RV|o(wner|ps)|r(e(quest|sponse)|oot)|b(ounce|bs\.smtp)|echo|mirror|s(erv(ices?|er)|mtp(error)?|ystem )|A(dmin(istrator)?|MMGR|utoanswer))(([^).!:a-z0-9][-_a-z0-9]*)?[%@> ][^<)]*(\(.*\).*)?)?$([^>]|$)))"
procmail: Match on ! "^X-Loop: realname@realdomain.com"
procmail: Locking "vacation.lock"
procmail: Executing "formail,-rD,8192,vacation.cache"
procmail: Assigning "LASTFOLDER=formail -rD 8192 vacation.cache"
procmail: Unlocking "vacation.lock"
procmail: Locking "/var/spool/mail/realname.lock"
procmail: Assigning "LASTFOLDER=/var/spool/mail/realname"
procmail: Opening "/var/spool/mail/realname"
procmail: Acquiring kernel-lock
procmail: Unlocking "/var/spool/mail/realname.lock"
procmail: Notified comsat: "realname@0:/var/spool/mail/realname"
>


So what is my next step?

Like I said the auto reply feature does work but for some reason we are still getting the bounce message as well. This doesn't make sense.

Are you using the isp mail or local. If you are going through your isp, you will need to re-configure sendmail.

Suresh Ramasubramanian's email guide- Sendmail on a dialup
sendmail

# Common e-mail tools
sendmail - postfix - sends mail to local users (and internet when configured correctly)
fetchmail - gets mail from internet accounts (non-Hotmail type)
procmail - sorts and delivers into separate mailboxes
mutt - mail client that sucks less than all the others
Email the Linux Way
Suresh Ramasubramanian's email guide
The Linux Mail User HOWTO
The Linux Electronic Mail Administrator HOWTO
SquirrelMail web mail
Why use Hotmail when there is LinuxMail?
Gotmail, a utility to download mail from Hotmail type accounts

We host our own mail server.

A google search for your error messages mentions that sendmail isn't configured correctly. Try the link in my sig and search for:

smrsh: "procmail" not available for sendmail programs (stat failed)

Well I used you linux/google search and got nothing of value and certainly nothing to support that the sendmail is not properly configured. Additionally... I did a standard google search... something I do constantly every day... and found the same question I have had with no resolution.

So I guess it may be that no one has the answer to my problem.

Do sendmail/maillog/syslog/messages logfiles show any error messages?

the only log that I can find is /var/log/maillog which of course is only logging transactions. No errors reported there. I checked through the sendmail.mc file and could find nothing to set error reporting higher or to specify where to put logs. I will work on getting better loging.

And the reason this was so hard to figure out... was because it was so stinking simple.

Sendmail runs with smrsh and thus will only use programs in /etc/smrsh . So after reading man smrsh I discovered that i needed to drop a link for procmail into the smrsh directory. did that and after a few tweaks... it works.


Thanks everyone for the help... sorry to be such a pain.

Enjoy the weekend.