I am experiencing problem exactly like the one Andersond described earlier.
qmailctl script fails to start qmail-smtpd, but when I run the run script directly, the connection works. Executing the command /service/qmail-smtpd/run from the shell works okay.
Trying to simulate the commands used in the qmailctl example always fails.
Is there a way of knowing the exact output of the svc commands use.
Note to Andersond - if you do a diff on your original and then your working one, what are the differences?