topic Re: sendmail banner in Operating System - HP-UX

sendmail banner

Animesh Chakraborty — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 02:19:28 GMT

Hi,
I wanted to omit sendmail banner (audit requirement) and I put # before SmtpGreetingMessage in /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and stop and start sendmail.
Still it appears while I telnet to port 25.
Any idea ?

Re: sendmail banner

U.SivaKumar_2 — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 03:48:15 GMT

Hi,

The Line should be like this

O SmtpGreetingMessage=

Or you can just put a simple banner

O SmtpGreetingMessage=Mail Server

regards,

U.SivaKumar

Re: sendmail banner

Sridhar Bhaskarla — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 04:20:02 GMT

Hi,

Shiv is right.

A customized greeting would be much better.

Add some customized message like

O SmtpGreetingMessage="Your activity is being logged"

Also consider disabling the options like noexpn, novrfy etc.,

-Sri

Re: sendmail banner

Animesh Chakraborty — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 05:03:07 GMT

Thanks Guys.
It worked.
How to confirm that vrfy and expn is disabled?
That is also another audit comments in my list.

Regards
Animesh

Re: sendmail banner

T G Manikandan — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 05:24:25 GMT

The line should be
PrivacyOptions=authwarnings,noexpn,novrfy

in sendmail.cf file

Re: sendmail banner

Animesh Chakraborty — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 05:44:31 GMT

Thanks TG.
Another one
"Sendmail must not be running in daemon mode"
how can I make sure that it is not running in daemon mode?

Re: sendmail banner

T G Manikandan — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:03:39 GMT

if the sendmail is running in daemon mode then it should have the startup option -bd

check the sendmail startup script

/sbin/init.d/sendmail

check whether the -bd option is there with the sendmail startup

like
/usr/sbin/sendmail -bd

-bd is the daemon mode startup.
THe default startup is -bm and not -bd.

Thanks

Re: sendmail banner

Balaji N — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:24:15 GMT

by default sendmail doesnt run as a daemon. check your startup script in /sbin/init.d/.

and refer to the sections "Modes" in the manual pages of sendmail.

Modes
sendmail operates in one of the following modes. The default is -bm,
deliver mail in the usual way.

-ba Go into ARPANET mode. All input lines must end with a CR-
LF, and all messages will be generated with a CR-LF at the
end. Also, the ``From:'' and ``Sender:'' fields are
examined for the name of the sender.

-bd Run as a daemon. sendmail will fork and run in background
listening on socket 25 for incoming SMTP connections.

-bD Run as a daemon, but run in foreground.

-bh Print the persistent host status database.

-bH Purge the persistent host status database.

-bi Initialize the alias database for the mail aliases file.
newaliases is identical to sendmail -bi. See
newaliases(1M).

-bm Deliver mail in the usual way (default).

-bp Print a listing of the mail queue. mailq is identical to
sendmail -bp. See mailq(1).

-bs Use the SMTP protocol as described in RFC821 on standard
input and output. This flag implies all the operations of
the ba flag that are compatible with SMTP.

-bt Run in address test mode. This mode reads addresses and
shows the steps in parsing; it is used for debugging
configuration tables.

-bv Verify names only - do not try to collect or deliver a
message. Verify mode is normally used for validating users
or mailing lists.

Re: sendmail banner

Animesh Chakraborty — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:31:13 GMT

It was -bd in my case.
what is -bm option for?

Re: sendmail banner

Yogeeraj_1 — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 07:09:35 GMT

hi,

-bm Deliver mail in the usual way (default).

hth
yogeeraj

Re: sendmail banner

U.SivaKumar_2 — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 07:52:15 GMT

Hi,

For High security SMTP site,

PrivacyOptions=goaway

regards,

U.SivaKumar

Re: sendmail banner

Sridhar Bhaskarla — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 14:24:08 GMT

Hi Animesh,

To verify noexpn, novrfy or goaway, do the following from another system telnet to the box

$telnet your_box 25

Trying...
Connected to your_box.yourdomain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 Your ESMTP activity is being logged
expn your_id
502 Sorry, we do not allow this operation
vrfy your_id
252 Cannot VRFY user; try RCPT to attempt delivery (or try finger)

-Sri

Re: sendmail banner

Animesh Chakraborty — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 07:24:37 GMT

After I started sendmail with -bm option,now I can not stop it using
#/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop(killsm is also the same)
#No sendmail server running
#ps -ef|grep sendmail
root 19134 1 0 12:09:27 ? 0:00 /usr/sbin/sendmail -bm -q30m

Re: sendmail banner

Balaji N — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 08:28:43 GMT

hi,
something wrong. can u check if the file sendmail.pid exists in /etc/mail.
also, does the pid what it lists and ps -ef | grep sendmail matches.

try killing it manually. removing the pid file and then start & stop sendmail.

hth
-balaji

Re: sendmail banner

Animesh Chakraborty — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 08:46:28 GMT

sendmail.pid file does not exit where it was started with -bm option.
killing manualy also the same

Re: sendmail banner

Balaji N — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 09:01:00 GMT

hi,
i couldnt get u. the pid file is not there. but stopping gives the same error message?

try killing the process and then start sendmail with the startup script. is the pid file getting created.
-balaji

Re: sendmail banner

Animesh Chakraborty — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 09:04:05 GMT

sendmail.pid file note being created when I start sendmail with -bm option. With -bd option .pid is getting created.

Re: sendmail banner

Balaji N — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 09:15:47 GMT

no idea. is there any error message in syslog or mail.log. also, can u try starting sendmail with the debug option and see if there are nay errors
-balaji

Re: sendmail banner

Yogeeraj_1 — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 09:27:59 GMT

hi,

i believe you should start your sendmail using the script in /sbin/init.d

e.g.
/sbin/init.d/sendmail start

you may also wish to check the ownership of the pid file.

L-oracle8i: etc/mail>ll *.pid
-rw-r--r-- 1 root mail 34 Feb 13 14:07 sendmail.pid

regards
Yogeeraj

Re: sendmail banner

Animesh Chakraborty — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 09:35:32 GMT

Hi,
There is no error.
It is starting and working fine but .pid file is not getting created when started with -bm option.
Can some one attach the /sbin/init.d/sendmail scripts where sendmail is creating .pid file with -bm option.
Thanks
Animesh