steve@mrc-apu.cam.ac.uk (Steve Platt) (07/25/89)
| Every so often incoming uucp mail gets as far as our machine, but then | stays in /usr/spool/mqueue as a df... file with no corresponding qf... | Has it happened to you? Have you overcome it? Yes and no (in that order!) We have had trouble like this for a long time. I also found core dumps from sendmail in the mqueue directory and incomplete logs in the syslog file - ie just one line with sendmail announcing it was starting up. As sendmail is setuid, it doesn't always core-dump of course... It seemed (sometimes at least) to be related to "domain unknown" errors. The most recent example looked like an attempt for our system to send a "return receipt" acknowledgement to an address with no known domain in it - instead of the local postmaster getting sent a "domain unknown" error report mailed back, sendmail coredumped. We also noticed that users "mailing" to unknown domains using Mail got the "domain unknown" message from sendmail printed on their terminal then instead of a dead.letter file or a return mail message, there was nothing - just another "df" file in mqueue; and if the user concerned was in fact root, then a "core" file too. Sorry the above is so long and rambling, I just hope it jogs someone's memory somewhere!
andrew@stl.stc.co.uk (Andrew Macpherson) (07/26/89)
| | It seemed (sometimes at least) to be related to "domain unknown" errors. | The most recent example looked like an attempt for our | system to send a "return receipt" acknowledgement to an | address with no known domain in it - instead of the local | postmaster getting sent a "domain unknown" error report | mailed back, sendmail coredumped. | | We also noticed that users "mailing" to unknown domains | using Mail got the "domain unknown" message from sendmail | printed on their terminal then instead of a dead.letter | file or a return mail message, there was nothing - just | another "df" file in mqueue; and if the user concerned | was in fact root, then a "core" file too. There is a known bug, if you are copying errors to postmaster: andrew.findlay@ Fri Feb 10 11:47:00 1989 To: andrew@stl Subject: Patch for Sendmail 5.61 has the same strcmp(NULL) bug that the previous version did. Any bounced mail causes a seg violation on a Sun. Patch follows: *** savemail.c.BAD Sat Feb 4 15:55:42 1989 --- savemail.c Fri Feb 10 10:49:40 1989 *************** *** 406,412 **** to = buf; for (q = returnq; q != NULL; q = q->q_next) { if (q->q_alias == NULL) ! if (strcmp(q->q_paddr, PostMasterCopy) == 0) cc = q->q_paddr; else { /* Not Postmaster; already on the To: line? */ --- 406,413 ---- to = buf; for (q = returnq; q != NULL; q = q->q_next) { if (q->q_alias == NULL) ! if ( (PostMasterCopy!=NULL) && ! (strcmp(q->q_paddr, PostMasterCopy) == 0)) cc = q->q_paddr; else { /* Not Postmaster; already on the To: line? */ --------------------------------------------------------------------- | From Andrew Findlay at Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK | | Andrew.Findlay@brunel.ac.uk phone: +44 895 74000 x2512 | --------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Andrew Macpherson PSI%234237100122::andrew andrew@stl.stc.co.uk - or - ...!mcvax!ukc!stl!andrew "It is always a great mistake to treat the individual on the chance that he may become a crowd" -- Mr Justice Codd: (A.P.Herbert)