topic Re: Sendmail And OutLook TimeOut in Operating System - HP-UX

Sendmail And OutLook TimeOut

John Warminski — Thu, 05 Jun 2003 21:39:12 GMT

Having a time out issue with Outlook.

Sendmail returns this:

Jun 5 11:34:45 comforts sendmail[7818]: KAA07818: timeout waiting for input fro
m [192.168.23.60] during message collect

OutLook says:
Server unexpectedly terminated connection .

Not consistant accross all users .

Cannot find a reference to this error any place.

Re: Sendmail And OutLook TimeOut

Geoff Wild — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 11:58:38 GMT

From KNOWN BUGS on sendmail.org:

* Delivery to programs that generate too much output may cause problems
If e-mail is delivered to a program which generates too much
output, then sendmail may issue an error:
timeout waiting for input from local during Draining Input
Make sure that the program does not generate output beyond a
status message (corresponding to the exit status). This may
require a wrapper around the actual program to redirect output
to /dev/null.
Such a problem has been reported for bulk_mailer.

COuld also be network related...what version of sendmail are you using?

echo \$Z | /usr/sbin/sendmail -bt -d |grep Version

Re: Sendmail And OutLook TimeOut

W.C. Epperson — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 12:29:55 GMT

Where's the Outlook client? On the LAN, or outside? Although there are various "Timeout." settings that can be tweaked in sendmail.cf, often when an hp-ux server times out on a client (mail, browser, whatever), the culprit is path mtu discovery. hp-ux is compulsive about PMTU discovery, and likes to send big ol' packets with "Don't fragment" set. Then when something along the path sends back a ICMP "Must fragment", and something else along the path drops it, the hp-ux box thinks the other side isn't responding, and times out.

I'll leave it to the wizards to tell you the best thing to do about PMTU discovery.

Re: Sendmail And OutLook TimeOut

John Warminski — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 14:25:32 GMT

First off:

Sendmail Version 8.9.3 (PHNE_24419+JAGae58098)

I had seen the note at sendmail.org . But somehow Outlook didn't strike me as a culprit for the noise item.

The issue seems isolated to my ADSL VPN clients .... had a user take his laptop from an ADSL site to a frame backbone site, all the mail he couldn't send from the ADSL site
went without a snag.

Re: Sendmail And OutLook TimeOut

Geoff Wild — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 14:54:41 GMT

ADSL....

Saw this post on google:

Never mind. I discovered that the "timeout waiting for input during
message collect" on my sendmail must have been an MTU discovery problem
since it did not happen for short test messages, but happened with
attachments (even from another sendmail).
My sendmail is behind a hardware adsl gateway, so I just had to set the
nic on my sendmail box to the same mtu 1492 as my adsl and the mail that
was timing out for days arrived from all sources including Exchange.

Maybe try adjusting the MTU on your HP-UX box....

Rgds...Geoff

Re: Sendmail And OutLook TimeOut

W.C. Epperson — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 16:05:34 GMT

Yeah, I was pretty sure it was PMTU at first glance. What's worked for us on most servers is to set
TRANSPORT_NAME[1]=ip
NDD_NAME[1]=ip_pmtu_strategy
NDD_VALUE[1]=2
in /etc/rc.config.d/nddconf

I figured somebody with a better hat might offer a better solution. This one at least allows PMTU discovery to still work, as opposed to just setting an MTU.

BTW, the ndd -help page says the default strategy is 2. It's actually 1.

Re: Sendmail And OutLook TimeOut

W.C. Epperson — Fri, 06 Jun 2003 16:11:46 GMT

Oops. Bad memory. Default is 1. Page refers to strategy 2. Strategy 2 is 1. Duh.