Error Mesage

[Santiago Flores]

/etc/mail/sendmail.cf: line 0: WARNING: World writable directory /etc
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf: line 691: fileclass: cannot open /etc/mail/sendmail.cw: World writable directory

The /etc/mail/* files have the same permissions in both servers but one can run sendmail and the other cannot.

[Shannon Petry · Accepted solution]

The problem is not with file permissions, but directory permissions. Make sure that the owner/group and mod of /etc/mail
Should be
owner=bin
group=bin
mode=555

You can fix this by the following..
% chown bin:bin /etc/mail
% chmod 555 /etc/mail

File permissions are just as particular, but the directory is what the error clearly states.

Regards,
Shannon

[Brian M Rawlings]

Santiago: check the following thread, I suspect your problem is related. Permissions on several directories need to be checked:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x19144b3ef09fd611abdb0090277a778c,00.html

I searched the forums with the following keywords, and got a lot of hits, try it yourself if the above link does not solve your problem.

sendmail world writable directory

Regards, --bmr

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Santiago,


What the error is complaining about is the perms on /etc

/etc should be
dr-xr-xr-x (555) bin:bin

It's a security threat for /etc to be world writable as there's nothing in there that comman users need to write. It's all config type stuff that ONLY root should be able to write.

Suspect that if both systems have perms on /etc the same, then you have diff sendmail vers & the newer is the complainer.
Sendmail has been steadily hardening itself thru the years.

Rgds,
Jeff

[Santiago Flores]

The solution for sendmail was change the permission for /etc to 555, thanks to all of you for your help.