[comp.mail.sendmail] How to setup a mailserver?

kai@iti.org (Kai Huebener) (05/29/91)

I am trying to set up a mailserver, i.e. a program that scans incoming mail
for service requests, processes them and sends back the results. I added a
line to /etc/aliases like litserv: "|/home/lit/litserv" where litserv is
the name of the program to execute. Permissions on the program are setuid
(not to root, of course :-)).

Whenever I send a mail to this alias, I get a reply saying 
"getwd: can't stat ." and an unknown mailer error 1. When the program is
run setuid root, everything works fine.

Does anybody know what's going on and where to set up the appropriate
permissions? Is this the right way of building a mailserver anyway? BTW, I
am using a Sun4 with 4.1.1.

Any help or pointers will be appreciated.

Gtgs,
   Kai.
--
Kai Huebener
Univ. of Hamburg
Computer Science Dept.
Germany