🚀 go-pugleaf

Simon Child <simon@child.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Now this evening I can't send mail, though I have changed nothing on this
> server for months.
> 
> First several mails stuck with message like
> 
> Nov 28 21:41:02 child sendmail[26693]: UAA25696:
> to=<john@hampson.demon.co.uk>,
> 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
> 
> I then set netscape to post direct to post.mail.demon.net without queuing
> through sendmail, pasted in copies of these mails and sent them that way.
> 
> Dejanews has only one reference to illegal seek, and that is in Spanish :-(
> and appears to be someone asking the question rather than receiving an
> answer.

Can only suggest looking at the code and seeing what generates it.



> After the reboot, messages are now stuck with a different message:
> 
> Nov 28 23:57:44 child sendmail[339]: UAA25696:
> to=<john@hampson.demon.co.uk>, ctladdr=<simon@child.demon.co.uk> (500/500),
> delay=03:15:14, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, relay=post.mail.demon.net,
> 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.
> 
> I restarted named, restarted sendmail, no better.
> 
> Checked /etc/sendmail.cf, /etc/service.switch, no sign of corruption.
> 
> Edited /etc/resolv.conf to bypass named and go straight to demon
> nameservers, no better.
> 
> Next suggestion please!!
> 
> 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?

service.switch? I thought the file was nsswitch.conf ... I can't check until
I go home this evening - I'm still waiting for my PC to be delivered
(and then
upgraded from Win98 to RH6.1 :-)

Paul

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
--
| Geek Code: GCS dpu s-:+ a-- C++++ UBLUAVHSC++++ P+++ L++ E--- W+++(--) N++ 
| w--- O- M-- V-- PS PGP++ t--- X+(-) b D+ G e++(*) h++(*) r--- y-	     
| Flags	: 	fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mmx 3dnow
| The sun is melting over the hills,         | http://www.glutinous.custard.org
| All our roads are waiting / To be revealed | piglet@glutinous.custard.org

Simon Child  <simon@child.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Nov 28 21:41:02 child sendmail[26693]: UAA25696:
>to=<john@hampson.demon.co.uk>,
>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

>Dejanews has only one reference to illegal seek, and that is in Spanish :-(
>and appears to be someone asking the question rather than receiving an
>answer.

No idea what your particular problem is, but apparently sendmail has a
tendency to randomly pull the last errno into error messages even when
it's not relevant. (Frex, if the remote server returns an error code, 
I've seen it put 'illegal seek' into the bounce message...)

Peter Maydell

On Sun, 28 Nov 1999 23:57:31 +0000, Simon Child <simon@child.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>Dejanews has only one reference to illegal seek, and that is in Spanish :-(
>and appears to be someone asking the question rather than receiving an
>answer.

I had illegal seek yesterday when trying to get perl script running on my
machine, to send mail from web page.

Anyway, ion the HELO <domain name> transaction in SMTP you get an error 250
"illegal seek" if <domain name> is null or a load of bollocks.

Hope this helps a little bit.

Neil

I had the same problem. I resolved it by restarting the DNS with the command :

/etc/rc.d/init.d/named restart


-- Simon Child wrote:

> Now this evening I can't send mail, though I have changed nothing on this
> server for months.
>
> First several mails stuck with message like
>
> Nov 28 21:41:02 child sendmail[26693]: UAA25696:
> to=<john@hampson.demon.co.uk>,
> 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
>
> I then set netscape to post direct to post.mail.demon.net without queuing
> through sendmail, pasted in copies of these mails and sent them that way.
>
> Dejanews has only one reference to illegal seek, and that is in Spanish :-(
> and appears to be someone asking the question rather than receiving an
> answer.
>
> I tried restarting sendmail a couple of times. No better. Incoming mail was
> still handled ok, but I couldn't flush the queue with sendmail -q
>
> I decided it was time for e2fsck and ran that. A couple of minor messages
> but not apparently anything to do with sendmail files.
>
> After the reboot, messages are now stuck with a different message:
>
> Nov 28 23:57:44 child sendmail[339]: UAA25696:
> to=<john@hampson.demon.co.uk>, ctladdr=<simon@child.demon.co.uk> (500/500),
> delay=03:15:14, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, relay=post.mail.demon.net,
> 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.
>
> I restarted named, restarted sendmail, no better.
>
> Checked /etc/sendmail.cf, /etc/service.switch, no sign of corruption.
>
> Edited /etc/resolv.conf to bypass named and go straight to demon
> nameservers, no better.
>
> Next suggestion please!!
>
> 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?
>
> --
> Simon Child