topic Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server in Operating System - HP-UX

Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

CFI-beheer — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 06:22:27 GMT

Hi Gents,

I've been looking for days now on the forum and man pages to get my sendmail problem fixed.

My HP-UX servers, HP-UX B.11.23 U ia64, RX2620, were able to send mail to een internal exchange backend server.
Since January 15, the servers suddenly stop sending mail(via sendmail) and sendmail dumpes all mail in
/var/spool/mqueue directory.
The strange thing that mails gets delivered when I try sending mail at a lower level, by through 'telnet mailserver 25'.
The mail.log shows this message when I try to send a message through sendmail

Mar 12 13:20:37 cfiux01 sendmail[1397]: l2CCKbw01397: to=feisal.gaffar@getronics.com, delay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=0, relay=mailserver, dsn=4.4.3, stat=Transient parse error -- message queued for future delivery
Mar 12 13:20:37 cfiux01 sendmail[1397]: l2CCKbw01397: from=beheer, size=587, class=0, nrcpts=0, msgid=<200703121220.l2CCKbw01397@cfiux01.getronics.com>, relay=root@localhost
Mar 12 13:20:37 cfiux01 sendmail[1397]: l2CCKbw01397: to=feisal.gaffar@getronics.com, delay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=587, dsn=4.4.3, stat=queued

Also when I do a
sendmail -v feisal.gaffar@getronics.com getronics.com: Name server timeout
feisal.gaffar@getronics.com... Transient parse error -- message queued for future delivery
feisal.gaffar@getronics.com... queued

I have take about this with the people of the windows mail and dns administrators but they are saying
that there my unix servers are allowed to sent mail through their windows exchange backend server.

I have also talked with the network administrator and he too tells me that there haven't been any network
changes en that everything is configured correctly.

I am now desperately seeking at a solution that could help me out of this mail problem
I have attached the sendmail.cf / mail.log some debugging information.

This servers are clustered systems. MC/ServiceGuard runs on them.

Could someone point me out to the right direction to get this problem fixed.

Thanks in advance,

Regards

CFI-beheer

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

Ivan Krastev — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 06:50:01 GMT

Check your nsswitch.conf - if your server cannot resolv properly relay server server add entry in /etc/hosts.

regards,
ivan

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

Keith Johnson — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:02:56 GMT

It definitely looks like a DNS issue to me. Try putting the IP address of the internal exchange backend server in the DS entry of your /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file.

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

IT_2007 — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 07:09:54 GMT

Seems your aliases file got corrupted. Try to update it with the following command.

newaliases

stop sendmail and restart it.

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

CFI-beheer — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:17:40 GMT

Hi Gents,

Thanks for your replies gents. I appreciate this very much.

I have tried creating a new alias file but this did not solve my problem.

I also tried putting the internal exchange backend servers name/ip-address in the DS entry but this also did not help.

Here is a grep of my /etc/hosts file
grep mailserver /etc/hosts
172.18.128.97 CFIEX02CP.cfi.local mailserver

My nsswitch.conf file looks like this

cfiux01:/var/spool/mqueue > cat /etc/nsswitch.conf
passwd:files
shadow:files
group:files
hosts:files dns
#hosts:files
bootparams:files
ethers:files
netmasks:files
networks:files
protocols:files
rpc:files
services:files
automount:files
aliases:files

I hope someone could help me solve the sendmail problem.

Regards

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

Tim Nelson — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:25:46 GMT

Does email to other destinations work ?

try looking up the mx record for the destination

>nslookup
>server localhost
>set type=mx
>getronics.com

output should look like this.
Trying DNS
Non-authoritative answer:
getronics.com preference = 5, mail exchanger = mailus5.getronics.com
getronics.com preference = 5, mail exchanger = mailbe5.getronics.com

Authoritative answers can be found from:
getronics.com nameserver = dnsus1.getronics.com
getronics.com nameserver = dnsus3.getronics.com
getronics.com nameserver = dnsus5.getronics.com
getronics.com nameserver = dnsbe1.getronics.com
mailbe5.getronics.com internet address = 192.58.226.39
mailus5.getronics.com internet address = 192.84.63.11
dnsbe1.getronics.com internet address = 192.58.226.7
dnsus1.getronics.com internet address = 192.84.63.5
dnsus3.getronics.com internet address = 192.84.63.3
dnsus5.getronics.com internet address = 192.84.68.16

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

Court Campbell — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:01:52 GMT

Did you put the exchange server ip address in brackets.

DS[172.18.128.97]

In the past when I did not put the brackets it did not send to the smart host. Also once you make that change you have to restart sendmail. Also do you have more than one DS entry by chance. If so the last one listed in the file wins. Also for grins change the hosts line in nsswitch.conf to:

hosts: files [NOTFOUND=continue] dns

Also can you post what is in your resolv.conf file.

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

Srini Jay — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:21:02 GMT

I had similar issue and occasionally I used to get mail stating that it couldn't resolve our domain name. So I commented the following line and it started working!

# pass to name server to make hostname canonical
R$* < @ $* $~P > $* $: $1 < @ $[ $2 $3 $] > $4

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

Srini Jay — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:22:36 GMT

As you might have guessed already, I made that change in the sendmail.cf file.

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

Steven E. Protter — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 14:04:47 GMT

Shalom,

When mail was flowing and suddenly stops, my first suspect is the networking department.

Did we impose port 25 firewall restrictions without notifying the sysadmins? Happens all the time.

That being eliminated, you must look to what you changed on your system.

Start with sendmail.cf and move backwards as noted above.

SEP

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

Bill Hassell — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:48:43 GMT

This is probably the most useful message:

> sendmail -v feisal.gaffar@getronics.com > getronics.com: Name server timeout

Your DNS server is refusing to talk to you. sendmail is tied to very closely to DNS for MX (mail delivery) records. sendmail has a little known file to define the local host name: /etc/mail/sendmail.cw and it should look like this:

localhost
myname
myname.mydomain.com

It also has it's own version of the /etc/nsswitch.conf file: /etc/mail/service.switch which defines how sendmail handles name resolution. Change it to:

hosts files
aliases files

Note that with nsswitch.conf and service.switch sett to files (only), your email capability is limited to hosts and IP addresses found in your /etc/hosts file.

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

CFI-beheer — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 04:52:42 GMT

Hi All,

Hip Hip Hurray.

I finally get my sendmail working.

The answer of Srini Jay helped to solve my problem
mail problem. Srini Jay thanks very very much.

I have commented the following entry in my sendmail
configuration file and voila sendmail start working like a charm

Here is the line that cause the mailproblem. I have commented it.

# pass to name server to make hostname canonical
#R$* $| $* < @ $* > $* $: $2 < @ $[ $3 $] > $4

I Also wanna thank all the others who tried help me
with there answers.

Greetings

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

CFI-beheer — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 07:46:09 GMT

Hi Srini Javan,

Just for my understanding why does this entry means.

# pass to name server to make hostname canonical
#R$* $| $* < @ $* > $* $: $2 < @ $[ $3 $] > $4

Does this entry mean that sendmail now does not look at the dns servers and only looks at the/etc/hosts file?

Could you explain what this entry means?

Regards,

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

pcjorge — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:26:29 GMT

thank I have solve it with your solution!!! Good solution