I had a CentOS 5.4 x64 server, running sendmail-8.13.8-2.el5, which executed a perl script via the .forward file to parse incoming emails. This was working for me.

The server was recently replaced, and in the process, a fresh installation of CentOS 6.2 x64 and sendmail-8.14.4-8.el6.x86_64 was done. The relevant script was moved to the new server, the .forward file was created, along with symbolic link in /etc/smrsh.

It stopped working. My var/log/maillog shows the following:

(in the below log snip, for security concerns, I have replaced the actual server name with 'myservername', and the domainname with 'domainname.com', tvmailbot.pl is the name of the script that is supposed to run, and 'sender@domainname.com' is the system form which the email is being sent)

Jul 23 16:03:01 myservername sendmail[6366]: q6NK31HE006366: to=root, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=32219, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (q6NK31j8006386 Message accepted for delivery)

Jul 23 16:03:01 myservername sendmail[6387]: q6NK31j8006386: to=<root@myservername.domainname.com>, ctladdr=<root@myservername.domainname.com> (0/0), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=32714, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent

Jul 23 16:03:43 myservername sendmail[6447]: q6NK3hsJ006447: from=<sender@domainname.com>, size=1154, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<20120723200343.4B1762A63BD@mail3.domainname.com>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=barracuda.domainname.com

Jul 23 16:03:43 myservername smrsh: uid 500: attempt to use "tvmailbot.pl"

Jul 23 16:03:43 myservername sendmail[6448]: q6NK3hsJ006447: to=|/opt/scripts/tvmailbot.pl, ctladdr=<mailbot@myservername.domainname.com> (500/500), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=prog, pri=31345, dsn=5.0.0, stat=Service unavailable

Jul 23 16:03:43 myservername sendmail[6448]: q6NK3hsJ006447: q6NK3hsJ006448: DSN: Service unavailable


What I've found online so far, seems to suggest there is a dns issue with this error. I can't seem to find any dns issues in my situation. All systems resolve to the correct ip. My hosts file on the server running sendmail only contains localhost.localdomain localhost at 127.0.0.1

I can see that the .forward file is getting read, as the desired script is referenced.

I've compared my working centos 5.4 server to the nonworking centos 6.2 server, and outside of versions, I can't identify anything that is different. Any feedback on what else I could check would be appreciated.

Thanks

Hi,
Check if it's a SELinux permissions problem.
Also you can stop using .forward and use the aliases file to do your job. Add in /etc/aliases
and run the command
Regards

1 members found this post helpful.

Switching over to the aliases file instead of the .forward file resolved my issue. Thank you for the assistance.

Regards