install sendmail from source

[lasanthaindika]

Hello there,
I am interested in install sendmail from source. Pls give me a good url discribes the steps for this.
Lasantha

[redhead]

Have you read the Sendmail installation and operation guide ??

[lasanthaindika]

I followed that, But I had a serious problem. I am having working sendmail server on Centos4.4 (installed using rpm) and if I stat sendmail in mta as well as msp modes the out put of ps -ax|grep sendmail gives following differences.
In rpm based system-Currently working one
[root@angle2 ~]#
[root@angle2 ~]# ps -ax|grep sendmail
3282 ? Ss 0:01 sendmail: accepting connections
3290 ? Ss 0:00 sendmail: Queue runner@01:00:00 for /var/spool/clientmqueue
12797 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep sendmail
[root@angle2 ~]#

but if I do install using source in my test machine and do the work neetfull it gives following output
[root@test ~]#
[root@test ~]# ps -ax|grep sendmail
4285 ? Ss 0:01 sendmail: accepting connections
4293 ? Ss 0:00 sendmail: Queue runner@01:00:00 for /var/spool/mqueue
12797 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep sendmail
[root@test ~]#

Sometimes it gives error as permission ristriction to /var/spool/clientmqueue directory.

Pls help to solve this matter.
lasantha

[redhead]

3290 ? Ss 0:00 sendmail: Queue runner@01:00:00 for /var/spool/clientmqueue
...
4293 ? Ss 0:00 sendmail: Queue runner@01:00:00 for /var/spool/mqueue
...
Sometimes it gives error as permission ristriction to /var/spool/clientmqueue directory.

If your problems lies in the use of /var/spool/mqueue instead of /var/spool/clientmqueue then Oreilly's Sendmail book describes it in chaptor 23, page 358, here's a small quote:

The sendmail queue is implementet by placing held messages into a directory. That directory and its name (usualy mqueue) are specified in teh configuration file by the QueueDirectory (Q) option (se $34.8.48)

QQ/var/spool/mqueue                 <- pre v. 8.7
O QueueDirectory=/var/spool/mqueue  <- from v. 8.7

If the QueueDirectory option is missing, the name defaults to mqueue.

And the $34.8.48 section page 735, adviced to, describes it as:

Mail messages that have not yet been delivered are stored in the sendmail programs queue directory. The location of that directory is defined by the QueueDirectory (Q) option. That location may be a relative pathname (for testing) or an absolute pathname. If the specified location does not exist, sendmail prints somethign like teh following

cannot chdir(/var/spool/mqueue) : No such file or directory

If the location exists but is not a directory, sendmail prints something like the following

cannot chdir(/var/spool/mqueue) : Not a directory

In both cases, sendmail also logs an errormessage via syslog(8) if the logging level of the LogLevel (L) option (se $34.8.33) permits. In both cases, sendmail aborts immediately.

The forms of the QueueDirectory option are as follows

OQpath                        <- configuration file pre v. 8.7
-oQpath                       <- command line pre v. 8.7
O QueueDirectory=path         <- configuration file from v. 8.7
-OQueueDirectory=path         <- command line from v. 8.7
define(`QUEUE_DIR', `path')   <- v. 8 m4 configuaration

The path argument is of type string. If it is missing, the value for path defaults to "mqueue". Relative names for the queue are always relative to the directory in which sendmail was invoked. If the entire QueueDirectory option is missing, the value for path defaults to the C language NULL, and sendmail complains with

cannot chdir(null) : bad file number

The default in configuring with teh m4 technique varies depending on your operating system.

The QueueDirectory option is not safe, if specified from the command line, it may causes sendmail to relinquish its root privilege.

Now I hope this gives you some info on how to change that mqueue setting you're havign problems with.

In the future, keep the discussion in the thread, instead of requirering PMs, for this time I've posted in the thread aswell as a personal message to you, but I would recomment keeping it in the thread.

[lasanthaindika]

Sorry for the inconvenience that I v made for you. Really Bat Book gives lot of information about sendmail. It doesent gives direct steps to compile sendmail. Its a good reference for sendmail. Its diffeculty to find out flesh clean cut to start compilation and install sendmail for a newbie. However the docs that I ve red gives me hundrads of methods but each not for zero to hundrad only gives parts. Anyway Your comments really heapfull me to do my work in sendmail. Thanks for that.
Lasantha

[redhead]

I'm glad I could be of help to you, and I'm sorry for pointing out sections from a book, instead of just telling you what todo. But it's been close to 7 years since I've personaly had anything todo with sendmail, and frankly I'm a bit rusty in its configuration to just say "do this, and it'll work".
In the past I used to swear to sendmail, but lately I've turned to provide exim solutions to customers, since I like how it's only the recieving deamon, which can be exploited, and since it is isolated from the entire delivery parts, it realy isn't that big of a thread.