sendmail dropping outgoing email on the floor

[Carlos Puchol]

hi thomas, thanks for your reply.

Thomas Woerner <twoerner at redhat.com> wrote:
> at the moment you are using a copy of postfix and not sendmail.

yes, i changed out of frustration.

> First of all: Why is /usr/sbin/sendmail a copy and not a soft-link? 
> alternatives generates soft-links.

it is a soft link. notice i used -L in the examples.

[12:09:43](1)rome:~$ ll /usr/sbin/sendmail*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root      21 Oct 22 22:45 /usr/sbin/sendmail -> /etc/alternatives/mta
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root       4 Oct 22 23:09 /usr/sbin/sendmail.exim -> exim
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
-rwxr-sr-x  1 root smmsp 748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail
[12:09:49](1)rome:~$

> Have you made this change by hand?

nothing like changing owners/groups (i know better than that).
below is what i did by hand. i repeated now.

of course, with murphy presented itself, so now
i don't see things changing.

the only thing i can think of is that to get
to a root prompt, i may have done just su, not su - or
ssh into root. does simple su (without a login shell)
have traces of the invoking user?

in the trace below, i do what i did the other day.
however, this time i have postfix as the alternative agent.
how do i change the default mta to sendmail via a command line?
(i usually do it via the applet thingie, but i am not
using X at the moment - only remote shell in use.)

[11:33:17](1)rome:~# ll -L /usr/sbin/sendmail*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail
-rwsr-xr-x  1 root root  2089729 Sep 13 09:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.exim
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
-rwxr-xr-x  1 cpg  users  748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail
[11:33:19](1)rome:~# rpm -q sendmail
sendmail-8.13.1-2
[11:33:25](1)rome:~#
[11:33:59](1)rome:~# rpm -e sendmail
warning: /var/log/mail/statistics saved as
/var/log/mail/statistics.rpmsave
warning: /etc/mail/submit.cf saved as /etc/mail/submit.cf.rpmsave
warning: /etc/mail/sendmail.mc saved as /etc/mail/sendmail.mc.rpmsave
warning: /etc/mail/sendmail.cf saved as /etc/mail/sendmail.cf.rpmsave
[11:34:07](1)rome:~# ll -L /usr/sbin/sendmail*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail
-rwsr-xr-x  1 root root 2089729 Sep 13 09:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.exim
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
[11:34:10](1)rome:~#
[11:36:28](1)rome:~# rpm -Uvh /tmp/sendmail-8.13.1-2.x86_64.rpm
warning: /tmp/sendmail-8.13.1-2.x86_64.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 30c9ecf8
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:sendmail               ########################################### [100%]
[11:36:50](1)rome:~# ll -L /usr/sbin/sendmail*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail
-rwsr-xr-x  1 root root  2089729 Sep 13 09:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.exim
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
-rwxr-sr-x  1 root smmsp  748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail
[11:37:06](1)rome:~#
[11:37:06](1)rome:~# cd /etc/mail
11:48:56](1)rome:mail# cat my.diff
--- sendmail.mc 2004-09-01 03:20:22.000000000 -0700
+++ sendmail.mc.rpmsave 2004-10-27 22:31:37.000000000 -0700
-dnl define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.your.provider')
+define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.comcast.net')
 dnl #
 define(`confDEF_USER_ID',``8:12'')dnl
 dnl define(`confAUTO_REBUILD')dnl
@@ -150,13 +150,14 @@
 dnl #
 dnl # masquerade not just the headers, but the envelope as well
 dnl #
-dnl FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
+FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
 dnl #
 dnl # masquerade not just @mydomainalias.com, but @*.mydomainalias.com
as well
 dnl #
 dnl FEATURE(masquerade_entire_domain)dnl
 dnl #
-dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(localhost)dnl
+MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(mydomain.com)dnl
+MASQUERADE_AS(mydomain.com)dnl
 dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(localhost.localdomain)dnl
 dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(mydomainalias.com)dnl
 dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(mydomain.lan)dnl
[11:49:00](1)rome:mail#
[11:49:34](1)rome:mail# patch -p0 <  my.diff
patching file sendmail.mc
[11:49:43](1)rome:mail# make -C /etc/mail
make: Entering directory `/etc/mail'
make: Leaving directory `/etc/mail'
[11:50:48](1)rome:mail#
[11:53:55](1)rome:mail# ll -L /usr/sbin/sendmail*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail
-rwsr-xr-x  1 root root  2089729 Sep 13 09:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.exim
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
-rwxr-sr-x  1 root smmsp  748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail
[11:54:00](1)rome:mail#

reboot ...

[12:11:11](1)rome:~$ ll -L /usr/sbin/sendmail*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail
-rwsr-xr-x  1 root root  2089729 Sep 13 09:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.exim
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root   141344 Aug  5 08:03 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
-rwxr-sr-x  1 root smmsp  748296 Sep  1 03:20 /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail
[12:11:14](1)rome:~$