missing mail

[David Gwin_1]

I just completed a new (new to this environment) system install of HPUX 10.20 and everything is work good except the mail system is not their; ie /var/mail is empty.

Q: Now that I have the system running with users, how can I setup mail? My primary concern is for root so the sysop can easily check backup and other nightly cron process.

Thank you

[RAC_1]

I sendmail running?? ps -ef|grep sendmail
Also check /etc/rc.config.d/mailsvrs file to enbale sendmail at reboot.

Anil

[Steven E. Protter]

sendmail daemon does not need to be running for outbound mail. All you need is the sendmail binary be executable to the user wanting to send mail.

To check for queued mail.

sendmail -v -q

mailq

This will show mail queued up.

/var/spool/mqueue is where mail wanting to go out sits.

For inbound mail you need the sendmail daemon running.

To set for auto start, first variable need to be 1 in /etc/rc.config.d/mailsvrs file.

or /sbin/init.d/sendmail start

as root user.

SEP

[David Gwin_1]

The sendmail server is running and /etc/rc.config.d/mailservs is correct. There are several mail messages in /var/spool/mqueue
I did find that there are no users listed in /var/mail

[RAC_1]

What are th eperms on /var/mail??

[David Gwin_1]

The permissions for /var/mail are
rwx for all
bin/mail for owner/group

[David Gwin_1]

Maybe this can give a clue to someone out there...
I am looking at the files (mail messages) in /var/spool/mqueue and there is a line in the files that common to most of the files..

Malias database unavailable

This is a new HPUX 10.20 installation and mail has never worked.

[RAC_1]

Does file /etc/mail/aliases exists?? If not create one. and do newliases

Anil

[RAC_1]

Does file /etc/mail/aliases exists?? If not create one. and do newliases
Sample file is in /usr/newconfig/etc/mail

Anil

[David Gwin_1]

Thank you for your help... You gave me clues to look at that gave me other paths to look. The actual problem was with the permissions on /etc and /var. both dirs had write permissions to all and for whatever reason the mail system did not like it.

Thanks

[RAC_1]

In such cases one shoud run
swverify on that product. This gives details about current perms and what they were when installed. This good trick to check the problems.