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Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

 
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CFI-beheer
Advisor

Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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
13 REPLIES 13
Ivan Krastev
Honored Contributor

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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

regards,
ivan
Keith Johnson
Valued Contributor

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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.
No matter where you go...there you are.
IT_2007
Honored Contributor

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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

newaliases

stop sendmail and restart it.
CFI-beheer
Advisor

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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
Tim Nelson
Honored Contributor

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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
Court Campbell
Honored Contributor

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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.
"The difference between me and you? I will read the man page." and "Respect the hat." and "You could just do a search on ITRC, you don't need to start a thread on a topic that's been answered 100 times already." Oh, and "What. no points???"
Srini Jay
Valued Contributor

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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
Srini Jay
Valued Contributor
Solution

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

As you might have guessed already, I made that change in the sendmail.cf file.
Steven E. Protter
Exalted Contributor

Re: Sendmail problem on hp-ux server

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
Steven E Protter
Owner of ISN Corporation
http://isnamerica.com
http://hpuxconsulting.com
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Twitter: http://twitter.com/hpuxlinux
Founder http://newdatacloud.com