echan@scdt.intel.com (Eldon Chan ~ ) (01/17/91)
This should be a very simple and some of you might have encountered before. I was using the standard .cf file from IBM and have my /usr/spool/mail mounted from a fileserver. We shares our /usr/spool/mail directory among all our workstations. I tried to send a message to another local user on the same NIS (YP) database. Below is the verbose output that I got. It appeared to me that bellmail has problem writing to a NFSed directory. It didn't help even if I gave root access to the workstation on the fileserver. I umounted the /usr/spool/mail and the message went fine. The solution I am using now is to forward all the mail messages (including local message) to the mail server. It also seems working fine since it is not using /bin/bellmail at all. Any pointers and ideas are welcome. Thanks Eldon Chan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------- cad610 267> mail -v bsriniv Subject: test ignore . Cc: echan... setsender: uid/gid = 1555/1550 bsriniv... Connecting to .local... bsriniv... Connecting to (local)... bsriniv... openmailer: DefUid 1, DefGid 1 bsriniv... openmailer: set ctladdr uid/gid 1555/1550 bsriniv... execve: uid = 1555, gid = 1550 bellmail: cannot append to /usr/spool/mail/bsriniv Mail saved in /home/unx/echan/dead.letter bsriniv... unknown mailer error 1
jackv@turnkey.tcc.com (Jack F. Vogel) (01/18/91)
In article <1790@inews.intel.com> echan@scdt.intel.com (Eldon Chan ~ ) writes: [ mail directory is NFS mounted ] >It appeared to me that bellmail has problem writing >to a NFSed directory... Yup, interesting since this is also the case with AIX 1.2, guess its a family sort of problem :-}. The problem, I believe, is that bellmail is suid root so we have the "feature" in NFS where root=nobody and therefore it can't write the file. At least this has been my assumption although I never have spent any time really tracking it down for certain. Seems like your solution of forwarding to the NFS host is the best alternative. Anybody know what Sun themselves does about this or whether or not they have the same problem?? Disclaimer: I don't speak for my employer... -- Jack F. Vogel jackv@locus.com AIX370 Technical Support - or - Locus Computing Corp. jackv@turnkey.TCC.COM
mikebe@i88.isc.com (Michael G. Beirne) (01/24/91)
In article <1991Jan17.161907.13020@turnkey.tcc.com> jackv@turnkey.TCC.COM (Jack F. Vogel) writes: >In article <1790@inews.intel.com> echan@scdt.intel.com (Eldon Chan ~ ) writes: > >[ mail directory is NFS mounted ] > >>It appeared to me that bellmail has problem writing >>to a NFSed directory... > >Yup, interesting since this is also the case with AIX 1.2, guess its a family >sort of problem :-}. The problem, I believe, is that bellmail is suid root >so we have the "feature" in NFS where root=nobody and therefore it can't >write the file. At least this has been my assumption although I never have >spent any time really tracking it down for certain. > >Seems like your solution of forwarding to the NFS host is the best alternative >Anybody know what Sun themselves does about this or whether or not they have >the same problem?? SunOS 4.0 and up sendmails check whether or not the /usr/spool/mail partition is mounted and if it is, forward the mail to system it is mounted from. I have modified the IBM sendmail.cf here to forward mail to a system that can resolve any non local mail and itself receives all the mail from the other RS6000 systems. There are also problems with file locking if multiple sendmails or /bin/bellmails are trying to write the same file at the same time. These are gotten around if the mail is always forwarded to one system which installs the mail. The IBM sendmail also will not send mail to any machine in the Austria country domain .at due to the way they handle spaces in the configuration file. The .at gets changed into an @ which is will of course be unresolveable. mikebe@i88.isc.com or beirne@limerick.chi.il.us -- mikebe@i88.isc.com or beirne@chinet.chi.il.us
jackv@turnkey.tcc.com (Jack F. Vogel) (01/25/91)
In article <1991Jan23.160745.5366@i88.isc.com> mikebe@i88.isc.com (Michael G. Beirne) writes: >.... The IBM >sendmail also will not send mail to any machine in the Austria country domain >.at due to the way they handle spaces in the configuration file. The ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >.at gets changed into an @ which is will of course be unresolveable. If you mean that disgusting hack to allow spaces as rule token delimiters due to braindead editors that expand tabs...:-}, well then at least in AIX PS/2 and 370 this no longer exists. I refused to carry that hack forward into the 5.61 code, so our sendmail now conforms to normal Berkeley behavior. Have you filed a problem report on this?? Seems to me pretty serious that you can't send mail to a whole top level zone! Disclaimer: These opinions are my own, not necessarily LCC's or IBM's. -- Jack F. Vogel jackv@locus.com AIX370 Technical Support - or - Locus Computing Corp. jackv@turnkey.TCC.COM