sendmail just broke HELP!!
 

I had sendmail working fine.

while I'm in webmin, I literally see is get removed from the list of services.

if I run a service sendmail status, it just returns to the prompt with no status and no error.

I tried running the rpm (http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat...oarch.rpm.html) but I just get the "packages already installed". I tried to force it, and I just got a bar that went to 100% and then it returned me to the prompt ... even with the -ih.

tried rebooting the box...same problem

it's like sendmail just disapeared.

I don't know what I did, but is there an easy way to troubleshoot and fix this?

I have centos 4.7 x86.

(in case you can't tell, I'm VERY new to linux)

what is the output?

[root@thecjggroup sbin]# chkconfig --list sendmail
sendmail 0 off 1 off 2 on 3 on 4 on 5 on 6 off

Something else that may be of interest... when I ssh with putty, and I go into /usr/sbin/ and I run LS ... the sendmail file is highlighted with a red square box.... don't know if that means anything...

if I type vi sendmail in that folder, it says no file found... So could sendmail have been deleted or moved?

if I reun the rpm, it says it's installed .. so I don't know what to think...

Another thing I noticed is that in webmin, it says

Full path to sendmail pid files:
/var/run/sendmail.pid
/var/run/sm-client.pid

but if I do a system search for those files, they don't exist...

And sendmail is under "unused modules" now in webmin and if I click it, it says:

Sendmail Mail Server Search Docs..

The sendmail executable /usr/sbin/sendmail is not installed on your system. Maybe your module configuration is incorrect, or sendmail is not installed.
The Sendmail package can be automatically installed by Webmin. Click here to have it downloaded and installed using YUM.


But I tried to reinstall it with yum, and yum says it's installed...

partially fixed...
 

Okay, now I can get sendmail to start/stop ... the sendmail executable was moved to another folder ... I don't know how in the heck I did that..but I moved it back and now it starts...

But now I get this error in squirrelmail when I try to send email:

Email delivery error
Server replied: 78 Can't execute command '/usr/sbin/sendmail -i -t -fpatrick@localhost'.

Any hints on what this could be? tried a google search on error 78 and nothing...

Do

ls -l sendmail

on the executable, you may have altered the ownership/perms when you moved it.

comes back with this:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Jul 8 02:01 sendmail -> /usr/sbin/sxim

if I do ls -l sxim, I get this:

-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 757168 Jul 8 15:33 sxim

????

Hmmm, a symlink to an unknown prog. Google doesn't seem to know 'sxim' and suggested its a typo for exim ... could be, at least that's a mail prog.
Do you know (or does the admin if its someone else) what MTA you are supposed to be using?

hehe I don't even know what an MTA is....

I may have been following instructions from some sites I found through google that had me copy files ... I may have hit s instead of e when copying ... is it safe for me to try and rename sxim to exim? .. could it break something else that can't be fixed by a re-rename to sxim?

MTA is Mail Transport Agent; moves mail from one system to another.
Depends on how critical this system is, but if its all under your ctrl, I'd be tempted to remove sendmail, exim, sxim.
Basically, completely undo whatever you did and start again.

Given you are on CENTOS, never install an rpm by hand if you can possibly avoid it.
Always use the GUI or up2date if 4.x, yum if 5.x. It'll handle all the dependencies for you and put things in the right place/owners/perms.
Ideally, upgrade to CENTOS 5.3. If not, install yum for v4.x, better than up2date.


MTA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_transfer_agent