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Sendmail error

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kmz

Technical User
Oct 3, 2000
22
GB
Hi,

Seem to be getting the following sendmail error message(s), would appreciate it if someone could advise a fix.

"sendmail[27330]: OAA27330: SYSERR(root): savemail: cannot save rejected email anywhere"

Thanks.

KMZ [sig][/sig]
 
This sounds like you have run out of disk space. What output do you get if you log in to a shell and type &quot;df -k&quot; or just plain &quot;df&quot;? [sig]<p> Andy Bold<br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href= > </a><br>"I've probably made most of the mistakes already, so hopefully you won't have to..." Me, most days.[/sig]
 
Hi Andy,

Thanks for replying back, but I have already checked the output of df and df -k. Space is not a problem, it could be that we are using sendmail for internet mail's. If it cannot find a return address back, then it fails. That is my guess, but need someone with more indepth understanding of how sendmail works.

Khurram [sig][/sig]
 
can you post the header from a failed email? (I'm not an expert, but I *have* read the book <grin>) [sig]<p>Mike<br><a href=mailto:michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com>michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com</a><br><a href= Cargill's Corporate Web Site</a><br>Making mistakes, so you don't have to. &lt;grin&gt;[/sig]
 
Hi MIke,

The following is the message from the post header:

T970824968
P30348
I64/8/15077
$rinternal
$slocalhost
$_localhost
SMAILER-DAEMON
RPF:root
H?P?Return-Path: MAILER-DAEMON
HReceived: from localhost (localhost) by hp02bas. with internal (8.9.3 (PHNE_18979)/8.7.1) id KAA26404; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 10:36:08 +0)
H?D?Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 10:36:08 +0100 (BST)
H?F?From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON>
H?x?Full-Name: Mail Delivery Subsystem
HSubject: Returned mail: Insufficient permission
H?M?Message-Id: <200010060936.KAA26404@hp02bas.>
HTo: root
HMIME-Version: 1.0
HContent-Type: multipart/report; report-type=delivery-status;
boundary=&quot;KAA26404.970824968/hp02bas.&quot;
HAuto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure)


Hope this helps, thanks.

KMZ [sig][/sig]
 
&quot;HSubject: Returned mail: Insufficient permission&quot;

Hmmm -- a file permissions problem? I know sendmail runs as root but I have seen programs - which run as root - that respect directory permissions like dr--r--r--

What are the permissions of root's home directory? (it might not be / by the way)
[sig]<p>Mike<br><a href=mailto:michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com>michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com</a><br><a href= Cargill's Corporate Web Site</a><br>Making mistakes, so you don't have to. &lt;grin&gt;[/sig]
 
Hi Mike,

The permissions are as follows, hope this helps.

-rw-rw-rw- 1 root sys 314440 Oct 17 09:00 root

KMZ [sig][/sig]
 
and what are the permissions on sendmail itself? (I think it runs setuid to root -- anyone?) [sig]<p>Mike<br><a href=mailto:michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com>michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com</a><br><a href= Cargill's Corporate Web Site</a><br>[/sig]
 
Hi Mike,

The following are the permissions on sendmail in /sbin/init.d:

-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 3671 Sep 19 1999 sendmail

Hope this helps, thanks.

regards

KMZ
 
All of a sudden I started having this problem as well. Over time my queue on this server went from it's normal average of 100 emails at any given time to over 1500 emails in the queue.

I am thinking that several things may cause an error like this. Your problem may not be exactly like mine, but how I went about finding the problem causing my errors may help you find yours.

Here is how I was able to fix mine:

It was not a permission problem.

In an article posted to this group in 1997, someone said that when this error happens Sendmail changes the qf* file to a Qf* file. So, I looked in my mail queue directory and listed all the Qf* files. Then I picked one at random and listed all the files related to that mail id. Basically, I substitued the &quot;Q&quot; with an &quot;*&quot; and it listed the associated df and xf files. I did this to several of them picked at random since there were over 2000 &quot;Qf&quot; files.

By examining these files, we found that sendmail was trying to call up procmail. We had abandoned procmail a long time ago, and had removed the files from the server. Somehow we ended up with a sendmail.cf with procmail references in it. Luckily, I have copies of my good sendmail.cf files, so I put a good one in place and stopped and started sendmail. I also moved all the &quot;Qf*&quot; files and thier assiciated files off the server since they were undeliverable emails anyway.

Within a hour my mailq went from 1500+ to less than 100.

So, look at all the files related to a specific &quot;Qf*&quot; file, specifically the &quot;xf&quot; file since it seems to hold errors for emails that have problems.

Oh! How I found the really old post was to go to and did a search in the usenet search section. Very cool site!!!

Dave
 
The group I referred to above was comp.mail.sendmail where I originally posted this message.

-
Dave
 
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