I run a Redhat Linux installation with Sendmail.

RedHat 8.0
Sendmail 8.12.5

My installation has been running fine for quite a while. All of a sudden my system no longer accepts connections to port 25. I have tried from a remote mahcine and received "Connection Refused", and I have tried it on the Host machine itself and received "Connectuion Refused".

Again, this machine has been running fine, and I have made no recent changes. Can anyone help me track this issue down? I have checked my hosts.allow and hosts.deny files and they look fine. I have looked at my access file and it looks fine. When I do a "ps -aef" I see the Sendmail daemon running and "accepting connections".

I use xinetd for other services and see no reason why this little guy should all of a sudden start causing problems.

I have have checked DNS files and all host records prior to tracking it down to the refusing connection issue of port 25 on this machine. This machine is used only for accepting smtp mail and delivering to local clients. My outbound smtp server is fine and accepting connections fine.

ANy help will be very appreciated!!!!

Jz. - A mail deprived man for the moment!

Run "netstat -l" to see on what ports you are listening.
if there's no line saying smtp or 25 you are not listening and need to look into the daemon. If you are listening, then have a look at your firewall