asked on

Mailx command not working from one sudo ID

Few days back any mail related command ( mailx, mail ,mpack ) stopped working from one sudo id .
in the logs i get error as dsn=5.6.0, stat=Data format error
but this happens with only one sudo ID-sudo1@my_hostname
another id -sudo2 works fine with any of the mail command

sudo su sudo1
mailx -s "Test mail" someone@example < /tmp/test.file
/home/sudo1/dead.letter... Saved message in /home/sudo1/dead.letter
where from=sudo1@my_hostname
message fails to sent

sudo su sudo2
mailx -s "Test mail" someone@example < /tmp/test.file
where from=sudo2@my_hostname
message successfully sent and received.

Not getting why with one prefix it is sent and other fails ... ?

Panagiotis Toumpaniaris

The mail server is on the same machine? Can you see in the logs (/var/log/mail*) if there are entries concerning this failure?

lisha

ASKER

yes they are on same machine ...
and i only found syslog ..in /var/log

cd /var/log
ls -l mail*
mail*: No such file or directory

ls -l sys*
syslog
syslog.0
syslog.1
syslog.2
syslog.3
syslog.4
syslog.5
syslog.6
syslog.7

Panagiotis Toumpaniaris

which mail server are you using? If you are using sendmail then you are right, the logs should be in syslog under the LOG_MAIL facility.

lisha

ASKER

yes we are using sendmail...

Jan Bacher

Perhaps it's not a sudo mailx issue but a sudo permission issue for that file in the tmp directory.

lisha

ASKER

the file has 777 permission on it ... we thought so initially ... but it did not work

Jan Bacher

Have you run strace?

lisha

ASKER

as i said earlier we were able to send the file using another sudo id .. sudo1 is not working but sudo2 is

Jan Bacher

I read what you said earlier and obviously this is broken otherwise you would have asked for help. Have you run strace?

lisha

ASKER

nope not able to run it as it gives error
strace mailx

ERROR: unable to open /dev/log

not having permission
but the log last update date was Mar 4 2014

lisha

ASKER

sorry (Jan Springer) if u felt i was rude earlier .... but i am exactly not getting what have happened ... as nothing has changed from our side

Jan Bacher

grep sudo1 /var/log/maillog*

lisha

ASKER

we have syslog ... since we use sendmail ... not maillog*... i could paste you the content of that if u like ...

Jan Bacher

Sendmail uses syslog and typically writes to maillog.

What is your OS? What version? Does it use selinux?

lisha

ASKER

my OS is sun solaris ... version SunOS 5.10

Jan Bacher

Try running that command with "truss" instead of "strace"

lisha

ASKER

ran the command with both sudo1 and sudo2 id for mpack
truss mpack ...
but no diff in any thing between the both id...
russ -c mpack
An input file must be specified
mpack version 1.5
usage: mpack [-s subj] [-d file] [-m maxsize] [-c content-type] file address...
mpack [-s subj] [-d file] [-m maxsize] [-c content-type] -o file file
mpack [-s subj] [-d file] [-m maxsize] [-c content-type] -n groups file

syscall seconds calls errors
_exit .000 1
write .000 6
open .000 6 1
close .000 5
getpid .000 1
execve .000 1
sigfillset .000 1
getcontext .000 1
setustack .000 1
mmap .000 26
munmap .000 8
getrlimit .000 1
memcntl .000 6
sysinfo .000 1
resolvepath .000 7
stat64 .001 18 12
fstat64 .000 1
-------- ------ ----
sys totals: .003 91 13
usr time: .004
elapsed: .040

SOLUTION

Jan Bacher

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arnold

More /etc/syslog.conf to see whether you are dumping mail.* to /dev/null
/var/adm/messages might contain mail related error, refer to syslog.conf

You might have restrictions mailx is a graphical,
Try
echo "To: somerecipient
From: sender
subject: test

This is a test" | /usr/lib/sendmail -oi -fsender_email -t

See what happens

lisha

ASKER

hey .. i tried using truss to check with mpack ...
the only diff that came is ..
/home/suod1 => truss mpack -s "`date '+%m%d%y'` TEST MAIL" -d /tmp/test_mail_msg1.txt -m 6000000 /tmp/test_mail_attach1.csv "someone@example.com"
Manu(8:40:14 AM):execve("/usr/bin/mpack", 0xFFBFE794, 0xFFBFE7BC) argc = 9
/home/suod2 => truss mpack -s "`date '+%m%d%y'` TEST MAIL" -d /tmp/test_mail_msg1.txt -m 6000000 /tmp/test_mail_attach1.csv "someone@example.com"
execve("/usr/bin/mpack", 0xFFBFE794, 0xFFBFE7BC) argc = 9

Manu is one of the users present in the server .. but does not have the sudo access ...

Jan Bacher

This is not copy/paste?

lisha

ASKER

yeah ... was a copy paste error ... now i see the first diff comes here..
stat64("/usr/bin/mpack", 0xFFBFE258) = 0
stat64("/usr/SUNWspro/lib//libsocket.so.1", 0xFFBFD9B8) Err#2 ENOENT

Jan Bacher

You probably need assistance with someone that's familiar with Solaris. I'm sorry but the debug does not help me.

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arnold

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lisha

ASKER

thanks !! the mail was getting blocked as id was blocked... now the id is unblocked... everything seems to be fine ..