Sendmail

[manny_9]

Hi,

I was asked to stop sendmail (redhat 7.2)

I tried sendmail stop , wouldn't work

I ended up with kill -9 with the pid.

How do I restart without rebooting ????


Thanks in advanve!

[Stuart Browne · Accepted solution]

If you have successfully stopped all sendmail processes (ps -ef | grep sendmail), then the command:

service sendmail start

should start it again. To stop sendmail, you should have just used:

service sendmail stop

[Alex Ferreira]

Hey friend,

/etc/init.d/sendmail start

should do the job for you...

Procedure for stopping and starting sendmail is no different to any other process..

Tip: If your machine seems to hang for a few minutes while loading sendmail( after the starting sendmail: message is printed), the machine's hostname cannot be resolved. To fix this, add the machines I.P address and hostname to the /etc/hosts file. This behaviour can occur as the X server attempts to start.

Hopes this helps.

Alex

[Steven E. Protter]

service sendmail restart

Will restart with one command.

As noted earlier

service sendmail stop to stop it.

The service command works on all Linux daemons.

If you want to stop DNS,

service named stop

Just wanted to make sure you understood that service is an all encompassing, useful command. So much so, that I ported it to HP-UX.

SEP

[Stuart Browne]

hehe ;) go SEP.. Welcome back by the way ;)

Sometimes it's just amazing how such a simple idea makes things so much easier..

The 'service' command (an 11 line script originally) was implemented way-back in RH6.0 (or possibly .1, can't recall), but it was broken at that point. Didn't get fixed properly until 7.0.

go figure.. ;)

[Alex Ferreira]

Hey SEP,

what do you mean by porting it to HP-UX? I tried doing a man on service and I got a smack in the mouth by the console saying

"No manual entry for service."

Alex

[manny_9]

Thanks guys!! Will try tomorrow!!!!!!

[Stuart Browne]

Alex,

Most Unicies have a central directory structure where the start/stop routines live, which are usually symbolically linked to the /etc/rc#.d/ structures for the start up/shut down routnies.

In RedHat, they used to be /etc/rc.d/init.d, but have moevd to /etc/init.d (although they are sym-linked together), and for SCO Open Server 5.0.5+ and Solaris 8 (not sure about other versions) it's the same (/etc/init.d).

Using the same method that /usr/sbin/service uses in RedHat (actually you could probably copy it without any issue) you can easily port the function to any other unix.

[Steven E. Protter]

In this thread, my last or second to last post includes a script called service

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xf0fc5dc05a7ad711abdc0090277a778c,00.html

It is not an official HP script, just makes it easier for my brain to switch back and forth from Linux to HP and back.

You copy it to the path, make sure its owned by root and that nobody else can execute it and the service command is on HP-UX.

It checks that the service in question is a valid script in /sbin/init.d/

Let me know if you need any help with it.

SEP

[Alex Ferreira]

SEP & S.B,

you guys rock... Thank you...

This forum rocks....

Alex...

[manny_9]

One more question!

I just remebered. When I sent kill -9 sendmail. There was one service that was associated with sendmail that I left alone , i wasn't sure what it was.I saw it when I did "sendmail status". It was something like (pid) can't remember specifically i am at home. Should I kill that service before restart???

The reason sendmail was shut down, was internal users (win98) had SOBIG-f in thier outlook express. The redhat server did not detect the worm???Everything up to date! Can't figure out the worms entry point.Could it have been internal.

Thanks

[Stuart Browne]

If the 'queue runner' was also running (or sm-client), then yes, you should kill that one as well.

Sendmail does not do any Virus detection, unless you have explicitly set that sort of thing up.

[Steven E. Protter]

Fred,

The worms entry point was probably not internal.

I will say this, sendmail will accept and tranmit mail, including virus attachments without any effect on the Linux or HP-UX system.

When nailing sendmail, there could be multiple active processes. To get sendmail with kill commands, this little script(attached) will do the trick.

In your scenario, you should first to this:

service sendmail stop

gkill sendmail (or any possible client processes)

The utility will list the processes set to die and then make them die with good reliability.

SEP

[Steven E. Protter]

Sorry, here is the post with attachment as promised.

Fred,

The worms entry point was probably not internal.

I will say this, sendmail will accept and tranmit mail, including virus attachments without any effect on the Linux or HP-UX system.

When nailing sendmail, there could be multiple active processes. To get sendmail with kill commands, this little script(attached) will do the trick.

In your scenario, you should first to this:

service sendmail stop

gkill sendmail (or any possible client processes)

The utility will list the processes set to die and then make them die with good reliability.



SEP

[Stuart Browne]

For confusion's sake, the linux version of 'killall' will do the same thing.

killall -9 sendmail

will find *ANY* sendmail process and send it a KILL (9) signal.

Beware using 'killall' on different platforms however. Some platforms version of 'killall' does just that, kills all processes..

[manny_9]

Hey!!!!

I just wanted to say Thanks again to everyone!!!