🚀 go-pugleaf

Simon Child <simon@child.demon.co.uk> doodled in uk.comp.os.linux:

> ctladdr=<simon@child.demon.co.uk> (500/500), delay=00:58:32,
> xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, relay=post.mail.demon.net, stat=Deferred:
> Illegal seek
	<snip>

> stat=Deferred: Name server: post.mail.demon.net: host name lookup
> failure       
> But I can lookup post.mail.demon.net and ping it and telnet to port 25 on
> it.

As what user, root or mail? (What does sendmail run as?) Given that ping runs
setuid root, if you've got a permissions problem on /etc/resolv.conf or
host.conf or hosts or whatever, you'll not see it with ping, and possibly not
nslookup if you run as root, but other users will have problems with telnet,
etc. Consider finding a standard networking command (ping/nslookup/telnet)
that fails and then strace it to see what it can't open.

> RedHat 5.1 server, sendmail 8.9.1, bind-4.9.7-1, absolutely nothing has been
> changed for months. So it must be some file corruption, I assume? Where
> shall I look?

Have a look around in /lost+found for things you'd expect in /etc concerning
networking, at a guess. Play with strace a bit, too. Consider running sendmail
in something like debugging mode not as a daemon. Consider changing to exim or
qmail instead. Consider changing your world view...[1] :)

[1] This part not original :)

~Tim
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