did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN du

[RJGlasener]

I am very new to Lunix and sendmail and have a server that is setup for email and every few minutes the Mail log prints the following message.

serverhostname.mydomain.com [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MTA

I would like to know what this message means and if there is corrective action I may take.


Thank you

 

[RhythmAce]

In short what it means is that a connection of sometype was made on port 25 but didn't make a request of any kind. This could be a few things. One is a connection was made but was lost before a request could be made. That is unlikely if your mail_log is full of this error. The next possibility is that the connection wasn't completed because of a network problem. Or sendmail could be dead. From the shell, type "/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail status" and see what is going on with sendmail. If it isn't running, type "/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail condrestart". Ceck it in a minute or so and if it says it isn't running or says "sendmail is dead but subsys is locked", you have something very wrong with your system. Try to think if you changed anything just before it stopped working. You logs will tell you the date and time it started issuing that error. If you didn't do anything to cause this, power down and do a cold boot to see if the problem corrects itself. Good luck.

 

[Guest_imported]

The other possibility that will cause "...did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MTA" is if your server directory that holds your sendmail logs is full--yhen sendmail is still running--but will error-out with the entry above.

 

[RJGlasener]

I tried the following command "/etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail status". It returned the following: "sendmail dead but pid file exists".

Thank you

 

[rouse01]

Issue a 'killall sendmail' from the command prompt, do it again until it replies no process killed, then issue: etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail start.

 

[Guest_imported]

I get these errors too, but my sendmail is fine, plenty of room for logs and email on the disk. What I've seen in that most access the results in this error seems to come from spammers and so I wondered if this is some form of "test" or probe or the like? Any input appreciated... - CyberSteve

 

[SevenFiftySeven]

I administer a small corporate lan using sendmail. I have this problem with a remote user going through ROADRUNNER CABLE. He times out quite often on ROADRUNNER. He also has a dialup account and when he uses it, he has no problems 99% of the time. Our network is complex. We use encrypted VPN firewalls and RSA keys for authentication. I'm amazed that after going around the world once (and it does that) that it works. If your user is remotely connected I'd try a different ISP. If your user is a local user then I'd look at supporting LOCAL INTRANET DNS. It has helped my network where local DNS has worked wonders.

 

[babeinaz]

I got one of these errors on an intranet web server that only allows outgoing sendmail. The IP belongs to a Korean network, not our intranet. Any ideas on what they were trying to do and HOW they got through a firewall to do it?

Nov 3 14:48:18 XXXXXX.XXXXXXXX.XXX sendmail[13702]: NOQUEUE: [61.100.19.251] did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MTA

(I changed the name of my server to protect the innocent)

Melissa