[comp.unix.ultrix] Sendmail Problem

jack@linus.claremont.edu (01/25/91)

Hi.

I have a really weird error (or so it seems to me) in sendmail that I have not
been able to figure out and I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me
out.  I am running Ultrix 3.1 on a DECStation 3100.  Basically the problem is
this.

You can send mail to root and root can send mail to any user.  But user A
cannot send mail to user B (or even to A for that matter).  Any user can send
mail from the DECStation to another machine but no mail can be sent to it (the
mail just disappears).  The syslog looks something like this:

Jan 23 15:31:30 LOCALHOST: 6788 sendmail: AA06788: from=jack, size=39, class=0
Jan 23 15:31:31 LOCALHOST: 6790 sendmail: AA06788: to=fdump,jack,
delay=00:00:02, stat=unknown mailer error 255
Jan 23 15:31:31 LOCALHOST: 6790 sendmail: AA06790:
message-id=<9101232331.AA06790@fenris.claremont.edu>
Jan 23 15:31:31 LOCALHOST: 6790 sendmail: AA06790: from=MAILER-DAEMON, size=0,
class=0 Jan 23 15:31:32 LOCALHOST: 6794 sendmail: AA06790: to=jack,
delay=00:00:01, stat=unknown mailer error 255

Any ideas?  Any help would be most appreciate.

---Jack

Jack Stewart        		Jack@Hmcvax 		  (Bitnet)
User Support Coordinator,       jack@hmcvax.claremont.edu (Internet)
Harvey Mudd College,            jack@134.173.4.32         (also Internet)
Claremont, Ca. 91711            714-621-8006

mike@raven.uss.tek.com (Mike Ewan) (01/27/91)

In article <1991Jan24.165833.1@linus.claremont.edu> jack@linus.claremont.edu writes:
>
>You can send mail to root and root can send mail to any user.  But user A
>cannot send mail to user B (or even to A for that matter).  Any user can send
>mail from the DECStation to another machine but no mail can be sent to it (the
>mail just disappears).  The syslog looks something like this:

I'm not sure but it sounds like protections or suid bits on either
/usr/lib/sendmail or /usr/spool/mail.  /usr/lib/sendmail should be 4755
and /usr/spool/mail should be 1777.

Mike


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 Michael Ewan    (503)627-6468      Internet:  mike@raven.USS.TEK.COM
 Unix Systems Support                   UUCP:  ...!uunet!raven.uss.tek.com!mike
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jack@linus.claremont.edu (01/29/91)

In article <7244@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM>, mike@raven.uss.tek.com (Mike Ewan) writes:
> 
> I'm not sure but it sounds like protections or suid bits on either
> /usr/lib/sendmail or /usr/spool/mail.  /usr/lib/sendmail should be 4755
> and /usr/spool/mail should be 1777.
> 
I forgot to mention in my original posting that I checked all the protections I
could think of.  /usr/lib/sendmail is 4755 /usr/spool/mail is 1777. And
sendmail.cf , .fc, .hf, .st, and aliases are all world readable.  It really is
sort of fustrating because it does sound like a protection/suid problem.  But
if it is, I don't know where (I also check the /tmp directory).

---Jack

avolio@decuac.DEC.COM (Frederick M. Avolio) (01/30/91)

/usr/bin/mail needs to be able to read /dev/kmem.  On older versions
of ULTRIX (pre 4.0) /dev/kmem is world-readable.  If someone
makes it unreadable, local mail will notbe delivered.

Going out on the limb here (no guts, no glory as they say) as the
original poster hasn't gotten back to me to say if things are
fixed. However, most certainly things won't work if /usr/bin/mail
cannot read /dev/kmem.  

(/usr/bin/mail reads kmem to find out what the load average is
to decide how to deliver the mail.)

Fred