sendmail - who am I really ?

[Michael Tully]

This is weird... Wondering if anyone has seen this before.....?

Using my own account, then sudo to root, I am attempting to send myself an email from one server to my exchange email. When it arrives in my inbox it says, it is from a different user. If I login again on the same server using the same method, the problem cannot be reproduced.

env HPUX 11i March 2002 patch release.

Nothing has been changed in sendmail.
No new patches have placed recently.
# what /usr/bin/sendmail
/usr/sbin/sendmail:
$Revision: vw: -RW selectors: 'ic27d' -proj integ -- ph_ic27d_i80 'cupi80_ic27dbase_pb(08-Nov-00.16:48:14)' 'BE11.11_IC27A'
Wed Nov 8 18:39:25 PST 2000 $
Copyright (c) 1998 HEWLETT PACKARD COMPANY and its licensors,
including Sendmail, Inc., and the Regents of the
University of California. All rights reserved.
version.c 8.9.3.1 (Berkeley) 10/01/2000

The user id of the user (sender) is not the same as mine. The /var/adm/syslog/mail.log states the mail is from this user (indicating the problem is not in exchange)

Suggestions.... Or should I be calling a lady with a deck of tarot cards.

Cheers
Michael

[Scott Van Kalken]

Hey Michael,

I'd be tempted to try mailing yourself on the unix box to see the results.

Try from an su

then try from an sudo.

It's always possible that sudo is not playing fair.

[Michael Tully]

Hey Scott,

Thanks for suggestion, still the same unfortunately from that session.

This is what I did:
su -
elm
sent an email to myself on the same server. It posted to my elm mail as the mysterious user.

As 'sudo', the same result....

Michael
PS As I said it is really weird and cannot be reproduced on a new session.

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Michael,

Do the
whoami
and
who am i
commands output the correct names after su and sudo?
Is there a possibility of duplicate UIDs on this system?
NIS involved here?
.forward files in use by either user?

Rgds,
Jeff

[Michael Tully]

Hi Jeff,

# whoami
root
# who am i
results in my own userid

The same in sudo as root

There are no duplicate user id's (checked already)
Wouldn't go near NIS
No .forward files.

What's that lady's phone number?

Cheers
Michael

[Jeff Schussele]

Do you get the same results with mailx or sendmail?

Jeff

[Michael Tully]

Hi Jeff,

mailx and sendmail give the same result. I am very sure the problem starts before the message actually gets to sendmail for sending. Why my userid converts to someones elses is the mystery....As I mentioned in my original post the mystery userid is embedded in the mail.log instead of mine....

Those tarot cards are looking better :^))
Cheers
Michael

[Scott Van Kalken]

...tusc it.


I'm really interested to kow what this is about now.

[Jeff Schussele]

Me too...them Ozzies have all the fun..... ;^)

It's gotta boil down to basics.
Have you run the *ck series...pw, grp & auth?

Have you examined an env output...carefully...checked your .profile line-by-line?
Any ~rc files hiding out there? Checked the shell binary? Come in as another user & su - to you?

This is quite the puzzler.....

Cheers,
Jeff

[Jeff Schussele]

Oh...and don't forget to think about wtmp/utmp corruption....

Jeff