Unable to start sendmail..Please help.

[Sajith V Mannadiar]

Hi,

When we invoke 'newaliases' it comes out with the following error.

----------
warning: cannot lock /etc/mail/aliases: Error 0
hash map "Alias0": unsafe map file /etc/mail/aliases.db: Permission denied
dbm map "Alias0": unsafe map file /etc/mail/aliases: Permission denied
WARNING: cannot open alias database /etc/mail/aliases
Cannot create database for alias file /etc/mail/aliases
------------------------

Due to this, we are unable to start the sendmail daemon also, as it invokes newaliases before starting.

We came to know of this error only when the system rebooted last time.

The system is updated with the latest patches. We have tried copying the aliases file from a different system ans also verified the file & directory permissions.. Still it did not work.

Can someone help us please?

Thanks,
Sajith

[Rainer_1]

check the uid/gid and permission of the files

/etc/mail/aliases.*

Correct it with

chown root:mail /etc/mail/aliases.*
chmod 644 /etc/mail/aliases.*

Then run newaliases again

[CHRIS_ANORUO]

Change the permissions of /etc/mail/aliases.db to
644, owner root, group sys.
Don't copy any aliases.db files from another system.
Stop and restart sendmail(/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop/start) This will also run newaliases command.

[CHRIS_ANORUO]

Change the permissions of /etc/mail/aliases.db to
644, owner root, group sys.
Don't copy any aliases.db files from another system.
Stop and restart sendmail(/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop/start) This will also run newaliases command.
You can also download and install the new sendmail patch (PHNE_22672 for 10.20)

[Sajith V Mannadiar]

Hi All,

As mentioned in my question, I had already tried changing the permissions of aliases & aliases.db files.


This has not helped us in resolving this problem.

Please help us.

Thanks,
Sajith

[Darrel Louis]

Are the permissions for your /etc/mail correct.
dr-xr-xr-- 2 bin bin,
If it?s set like above it can?t create a file in the directory, it should be like:
dr-xr-xr-x 2 bin bin

Test by creating a file in /etc and in /etc/mail, with the touch command.

[Tracey]

Could someone have possibly changed/added to your /etc/mail/alias file since your last boot? Possibly there is a syntax error in one of the entries.

[Berlene Herren]

Still sounds like a permissions/ownership problem. Let's compare:dr-xr-xr-x 29 bin bin 6144 May 10 12:30 /etc
dr-xr-xr-x 2 bin bin 1024 May 10 13:43 /etc/mail
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 835 Aug 30 1999 /etc/mail/aliases
-rw-r--r-- 1 root mail 32768 May 10 13:43 /etc/mail/aliases.db

/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop Re-start it using: /sbin/init.d/sendmail start and run: sendmail -q -v to force immediate processing of sendmail's message queue.

Berlene