topic Re: missing mail in Operating System - HP-UX

missing mail

David Gwin_1 — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:25:14 GMT

I just completed a new (new to this environment) system install of HPUX 10.20 and everything is work good except the mail system is not their; ie /var/mail is empty.

Q: Now that I have the system running with users, how can I setup mail? My primary concern is for root so the sysop can easily check backup and other nightly cron process.

Thank you

Re: missing mail

RAC_1 — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:33:42 GMT

I sendmail running?? ps -ef|grep sendmail
Also check /etc/rc.config.d/mailsvrs file to enbale sendmail at reboot.

Anil

Re: missing mail

Steven E. Protter — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 13:21:14 GMT

sendmail daemon does not need to be running for outbound mail. All you need is the sendmail binary be executable to the user wanting to send mail.

To check for queued mail.

sendmail -v -q

mailq

This will show mail queued up.

/var/spool/mqueue is where mail wanting to go out sits.

For inbound mail you need the sendmail daemon running.

To set for auto start, first variable need to be 1 in /etc/rc.config.d/mailsvrs file.

or /sbin/init.d/sendmail start

as root user.

SEP

Re: missing mail

David Gwin_1 — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:20:17 GMT

The sendmail server is running and /etc/rc.config.d/mailservs is correct. There are several mail messages in /var/spool/mqueue
I did find that there are no users listed in /var/mail

Re: missing mail

RAC_1 — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:39:28 GMT

What are th eperms on /var/mail??

Re: missing mail

David Gwin_1 — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 15:50:30 GMT

The permissions for /var/mail are
rwx for all
bin/mail for owner/group

Re: missing mail

David Gwin_1 — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 09:52:38 GMT

Maybe this can give a clue to someone out there...
I am looking at the files (mail messages) in /var/spool/mqueue and there is a line in the files that common to most of the files..

Malias database unavailable

This is a new HPUX 10.20 installation and mail has never worked.

Re: missing mail

RAC_1 — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 10:28:41 GMT

Does file /etc/mail/aliases exists?? If not create one. and do newliases

Anil

Re: missing mail

RAC_1 — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 10:29:53 GMT

Does file /etc/mail/aliases exists?? If not create one. and do newliases
Sample file is in /usr/newconfig/etc/mail

Anil

Re: missing mail

David Gwin_1 — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 18:55:38 GMT

Thank you for your help... You gave me clues to look at that gave me other paths to look. The actual problem was with the permissions on /etc and /var. both dirs had write permissions to all and for whatever reason the mail system did not like it.

Thanks

Re: missing mail

RAC_1 — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 19:01:12 GMT

In such cases one shoud run
swverify on that product. This gives details about current perms and what they were when installed. This good trick to check the problems.