sendmail not working

[Chuck Swiger]

On Jan 8, 2013, at 9:09 AM, Robert Huff wrote:
>>  WHAT HAPPENS when you 'telnet' to your mailserver port(s) and try
>>  doing smtp transaction(s) manually?
> 
> 	I don't get the SMTP prompt.

OK, so sendmail either isn't starting, isn't binding to port 25, or some sort of network/firewall issue is blocking the connection.  You should see a log entry like:

sendmail[XXXX]: starting daemon (8.14.6): SMTP+queueing at 01:00:00

...and netstat -an | grep 25 (or similar with lsof) should find a LISTENing process on the port.

>> What do the sendmail log messages say?
> 
> Jan  8 10:12:44 jerusalem sm-mta[28896]: r05KsfdB048780: forward /home/huff/.forward.jerusalem+: Group writable directory
> Jan  8 10:12:44 jerusalem sm-mta[28896]: r05KsfdB048780: forward /home/huff/.forward+: Group writable directory
> Jan  8 10:12:44 jerusalem sm-mta[28896]: r05KsfdB048780: forward /home/huff/.forward.jerusalem: Group writable directory
> Jan  8 10:12:44 jerusalem sm-mta[28896]: r05KsfdB048780: forward /home/huff/.forward: Group writable directory
> Jan  8 10:12:44 jerusalem sm-mta[28896]: r05KsfdB048780: smtpquit: mailer local exited with exit value 1
> Jan  8 10:12:44 jerusalem sm-mta[28896]: r05KsfdB048780: to=<huff at localhost>, delay=2+18:16:27, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=56791038, relay=local, dsn=4.4.2, stat=Deferred: Connection reset by local

You either need to fix the permissions by running something like:

   chmod go-w / /home /home/huff /etc /etc/mail

...or you can add something like the following to your sendmail.cf:

   O DontBlameSendmail=ForwardFileInGroupWritableDirPath

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck