sendmail dropping outgoing email on the floor

[Carlos Puchol]

hi alexander,

Alexander Dalloz wrote:
> Am Do, den 28.10.2004 schrieb Carlos Puchol um 1:09:
> > Oct 25 14:25:40 rome sendmail[9106]: NOQUEUE: SYSERR(cpg): can not chdir(/var/spool/clientmqueue/): Permission denied
> 
> > noone running into this?
> 
> No. A test with "date | mail -s test recipient" succeeded without a
> problem.
> 
> > -c
> 
> With which MUA do you try to send mail? Seems the mail client running as
> user cpg tries to directly feed the submission queue. So it is a task to
> configure your client properly.

i use mutt. from what you say, i am guessing that the cpg in SYSERR(cpg) means
that the id under which it is run is cpg. in that case, the issue
is understandable that the process cannot go into the clientmqueue.

> Or which permissions does the /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail binary have?

interesting that you ask that. turns out that it was actually owned
by cpg.cpg.

hmmm. not sure how that happened, since i typically
do all my work under either sudo or su.

at any rate, i changed it to smmsp.smmsp and tried again, but got the
same issue. furthermore, i got it with the example you mention:

[22:12:50](2)rome:~$ date | mail -s test myuser at mydomain.com
WARNING: RunAsUser for MSP ignored, check group ids (egid=100, want=51)
can not chdir(/var/spool/clientmqueue/): Permission denied
Program mode requires special privileges, e.g., root or TrustedUser.
[22:15:30](2)rome:~$

that clearly indicates that the user id _is_ the issue.

[22:23:38](2)rome:~$ id cpg
uid=500(cpg) gid=100(users) groups=100(users)
[22:23:43](2)rome:~$ id smmsp
uid=51(smmsp) gid=51(smmsp) groups=51(smmsp)
[22:23:44](2)rome:~$

i removed the rpm, but i took a look at the permissions before doing that:

22:24:38](3)rome:cpg# ll -L /usr/sbin/sendmail*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 smmsp smmsp  748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail
-rwsr-xr-x  1 root  root  2089729 Sep 13 09:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.exim
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
-rwxr-xr-x  1 smmsp smmsp  748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail
[22:24:42](3)rome:cpg# 

and the reinstalled. i got this:

[22:27:55](3)rome:cpg# ll -L /usr/sbin/sendmail*
-rwxr-sr-x  1 root smmsp  748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail
-rwsr-xr-x  1 root root  2089729 Sep 13 09:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.exim
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
-rwxr-sr-x  1 root smmsp  748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail
[22:28:01](3)rome:cpg# 

which clearly _would_ make things work. if it weren't for the fact that
the settings (masquerade and smart host) also reset. then i set them up

[22:31:12](3)rome:mail# diff sendmail.mc.rpmsave sendmail.mc
22c22
< define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.comcast.net')
---
> dnl define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.your.provider')
153c153
< FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
---
> dnl FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
159,160c159
< MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(mydomain.com)dnl
< MASQUERADE_AS(mydomain.com)dnl
---
> dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(localhost)dnl
[22:31:33](3)rome:mail# cp sendmail.mc.rpmsave sendmail.mc
cp: overwrite `sendmail.mc'? y
[22:31:37](3)rome:mail#

then restarted sendmail a couple of times from the command line
and also from the services GUI, in case i could reproduce it.

i can't. so -- i am baffled as to how the user/group and
the setuid was changed. i am 100% certain i did not change the
permissions or user/group by hand.

thanks for your help, even though this will remain a mystery.
if nothing else, this prompted me to finally switch to postfix,
at least for outbound mail.

-c