topic sendmail installation in Operating System - Linux

sendmail installation

snp — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:31:19 GMT

while installing send mail.8.14.3 on RHE5 server getting following error.

[root@XXXXX sendmail-8.14.3]# install: cannot create regular file `/usr/man/man1/vacation.1': No such file or directory
> make[1]: *** [install-docs] Error 1
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/etc/mail/sendmail-8.14.3/obj.Linux.2.6.18-8.el5.i686/vacation'
> make: *** [all] Error 2

Re: sendmail installation

Steven Schweda — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:38:52 GMT

Looks like a defect in the installation
procedure. Did you try making the directory
yourself?

mkdir -p /usr/man/man1

Re: sendmail installation

Matti_Kurkela — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:07:49 GMT

The newer releases of Linux filesystem standard prefer /usr/share/man instead of /usr/man.

Obviously you're compiling Sendmail from source. Does your siteconfig.m4 file contain something like:

define(`confMANROOTMAN', `/usr/man/man')

If you find such a line, remove it and/or replace it with:

define(`confMANROOTMAN', `/usr/share/man/man')

MK

Re: sendmail installation

Jupinder Bedi — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 07:42:33 GMT

try as follows

make and than make install

Re: sendmail installation

J. Maestre — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:17:31 GMT

Wouldn't be easier to just install the rpm package?

Re: sendmail installation

snp — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:28:02 GMT

using make & make install i've installed. what to do next?

Re: sendmail installation

Jupinder Bedi — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:12:23 GMT

good , now configure you sendmail by editing /etc/mail/sendmail.cf or find the path by using find command . now look for the relay field in that file and mention your relay server in that and also do some necessary changes if you want also mention your relay server in /etc/hosts file than restart the services

service sendmail stop
service sendmail start

Re: sendmail installation

snp — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:20:13 GMT

when trying to start - no response.

Re: sendmail installation

Jupinder Bedi — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:31:36 GMT

have you mentioned the relay server in sendmail.cf and also check the server you have mentioned is pingable or not.

Re: sendmail installation

Matti_Kurkela — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:27:56 GMT

No response *at all* when trying to run "service sendmail start"? No error messages, *nothing* but the command prompt?

That usually means the sendmail service has been disabled by setting the appropriate variable to "no" in /etc/sysconfig/sendmail.

Because the "service" command did not display an error message, it means /etc/init.d/sendmail exists. That means you are not merely installing sendmail 8.14.3: I think you are *overwriting* RHEL5's standard version of sendmail with your custom version.

The problem with that is, when RedHat publishes an update to RHEL 5's sendmail, then yum (the RHEL 5 package management tool) is going to again overwrite your custom version with RedHat's update.

(Assuming your system *is* registered to RedHat Network; but if it isn't, why aren't you using the free CentOS Linux distribution instead?)

If you want to replace RedHat's standard version of sendmail with a newer version because you need some new functionality, you should have made a custom RPM with an appropriate (=higher than RHEL5 sendmail's) version number, so that the package management system knows not to replace it with the standard updates. The custom package should have included copies of all the standard startup scripts & other configuration files of standard RedHat sendmail, including /etc/init.d/sendmail and /etc/sysconfig/sendmail.

At the very least, you should now configure yum so it refuses to update sendmail automatically - and document what has been done to install a custom version of sendmail and why.

Otherwise, someone who needs to install security updates to this system when you're not available is going to hate you.

(If this system is going to handle incoming email from Internet, assume that there eventually *will* be a need to install important security updates.)

MK