Alert not getting logged in /var/adm/syslog/mail.log

[boomerang]

Hi Admins,

I had purged the mail.log after that i had restarted sendmail.Now mail alerts are not getting logged in /var/adm/syslog/mail.log

OS : HP-UX 11.23

The below entry is already present in /etc/syslog.conf

mail.debug /var/adm/syslog/mail.log

Please advise.

[Suraj K Sankari]

Hi,
Check your mail demon is running or not

$ ps -aef | grep -i mail
root 963 1 0 01:58:23 ? 0:06 sendmail: accepting connections on port 25


Suraj

[boomerang]

Yes its running.

>ps -ef | grep sendmail
root 236 1 0 10:02:42 ? 0:00 sendmail: accepting connections

[rariasn · Accepted solution]

Hi,

# /sbin/init.d/syslogd stop

# /sbin/init.d/syslogd start

rgs,

[Bill Hassell]

Have you edited /etc/syslog.conf recently? There can be no spaces in this file, only tabs. To see the tabs and spaces:

cat -tv /etc/syslog.conf

There should be nothing but ^I between items in this file. A space causes the entire line to be ignored. To test the mail facility in syslog, use:

logger -p mail.info "Testing mail"
tail /var/adm/syslog/mail.log

Also check the tail of syslog.log.

[boomerang]

Hi rariasn,

Your tip solved ma problem.Many thanks


Hi Bill /Suraj,

Thanks for your valueable feedback and time.

[Viktor Balogh]

boomerang, maybe you want to know why it has happened: by purging you simply deleted the logfile in use. after re-creating it, the logs were still written to the old inode, and the newly created file had got a new inode number. that's why you didn't see any logs in it. next time you must purge the logs like this:

# > /var/adm/syslog/mail.log

this way you don't need to restart the service. ok, i don't get any points for this, but - WHO CARES?

[boomerang]

Hello Viktor,

Thanks,It was very informative.