[SOLVED]Re: sendmail problems

[Paul Howarth]

Sharon Kimble wrote:
> Paul Howarth wrote:
>>What you should be worried about is how your system got into this state
>>in the first place. Any ideas on how someone running as root could
>>change the permissions of the root directory so that any regular user
>>could create, delete and rename files there? For instance, on your
>>system a regular user could run the command "mv /lib /trash" and
>>completely break your system in a way that would be quite difficult to
>>recover from.
> 
> Thanks, this sorted it, and I've got sendmail working again.
> 
> Regarding the other problem - the last sendmail message was at 0500 on
> Sunday last ..... so its something that happened (or I did) between then
> and now. I'm currently investigating.

A couple of possibilities:

1. See if there are any files/directories owned by a non-root user in 
the root directory. That might provide a clue if there are any such 
files/directories.

2. Are you in the habit of logging in as root or leaving a terminal 
window with a root shell running? If so, you might have inadvertently 
typed a chmod command or run a script in the wrong directory, as root, 
by mistake. This is why people regularly recommend only switching to 
root when you really need to run a command as root, and then switch back.

Paul.