Sendmail and HostStatus handling
 

I run sendmail 8.13.8-3 on an etch box, and am having a small problem
with configuration of HostStatus that seems to be related to how
sendmail is implemented in Debian.

If I set DAEMON_HOSTSTATS="No"; in sendmail.conf, then sendmailconfig
deletes /var/lib/sendmail/host_status, as described in relevant
documentation. However, somewhere along, sendmail is still trying to
write to that directory on the regular runs of the sendmail queues (in
my case, every 20 minutes), and I get an error


Warning: Cannot use HostStatusDirectory = /var/lib/sendmail/host_status: No such file or directory


which persists until I manually recreate the host_status directory.

On the other hand, if I set DAEMON_HOSTSTATS to "yes", I get errors that
look like:


mci_lock_host: cannot create host lock file /var/lib/sendmail/host_status/com./example: Permission denied


These errors don't happen consistently, but do turn up when sendmail
makes its scheduled runs.

In this example, the name of the box is "example.com" without a local
host name attached to the domain.

Additionally, this particular box is set up so that it has multiple
domain names, and each domain has a unique IP address. Thus,
"foobar.com" is also hosted here, with its own IP.

The peculiar thing is that this error is happening only in conjunction
with the primary hostname on the box, and there's no problems with any
of the secondaries.

The permissions on the directory are:

drwxr-s--x 3 smmta smmsp 4096 Mar 17 18:31 /var/lib/sendmail

I've done a little tinkering with ownerships and permissions, but
haven't found a combination that works.

At the moment, I have DAEMON_HOSTSTATS set to "no", because my
preference is having to manually recreate the directory, rather than
having a more constant stream of administrative mail complaining about
"cannot create host lock file".

I don't think there's any compelling reason to enable HostStatus, and I
don't think there's any significant performance difference by having it
enabled.

The preferred fix would be to find out why sendmail is trying to write
to host_status when DAEMON_HOSTSTATS is set to "no", but by the same
token, I'd be happy to leave enabled and make sure that there aren't any
write conflicts. Either solution would be fine, as long as it makes the
errors go away.

Smith


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Sendmail and HostStatus handling
 

On Wed, 14 May 2008, NFN Smith wrote:


If I set DAEMON_HOSTSTATS="No"; in sendmail.conf, then sendmailconfig
deletes /var/lib/sendmail/host_status, as described in relevant
documentation. However, somewhere along, sendmail is still trying to
write to that directory on the regular runs of the sendmail queues (in
my case, every 20 minutes), and I get an error

Warning: Cannot use HostStatusDirectory = /var/lib/sendmail/host_status: No
such file or directory


This was tweaked somewhere after your version to also update sendmail.mc
- I can't recall when... I've had more than a few drinks since then...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
dnl # Items controlled by /etc/mail/sendmail.conf - DO NOT TOUCH HERE
dnl undefine(`confHOST_STATUS_DIRECTORY')dnl #DAEMON_HOSTSTATS
dnl # Items controlled by /etc/mail/sendmail.conf - DO NOT TOUCH HERE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

when DAEMON_HOSTSTATS="No", this undefine is uncommented - and that is
what you need to prevent those error messages.


I don't think there's any compelling reason to enable HostStatus, and I
don't think there's any significant performance difference by having it
enabled.


I use it more for diagnostic purposes - so I know what relay hosts are
giving me fits... but you are correct, sendmail caches hoststatus
information in-memory, and does its aging there. I have disk-based

status information that I manually clear out roughly quarterly.

--
Rick Nelson
<netgod> heh thats a lost cause, like the correct pronounciation of
"jewelry"
<netgod> give it up :-)
<sage> and the correct spelling of "colour" :)
<BenC> heh
<sage> and aluminium
<BenC> or nuclear weapons
<sage> are you threating me yankee ?
<sage> just cause we don't have the bomb...
<BenC> back off ya yellow belly


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