Arrg, sendmail!

I’ve been having some terrible problems with Ubuntu dropping the network connection (by either reverting from static back to DHCP or it stopped sending packets) on network restart. Each time it would come up with an error:

tank~# /etc/init.d/networking restart
Setting up IP spoofing protection: rp_filter.
Enabling TCP/IP SYN cookies...done.
Enabling packet forwarding...done.
Reconfiguring network interfaces...ifup: interface lo already configured
addr=192.168.1.102, name=
Updating databases ...
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Creating /etc/mail/databases...
Updating Makefile ...
Reading configuration from /etc/mail/sendmail.conf.
Validating configuration.
Creating /etc/mail/Makefile...
Updating sendmail.cf ...
*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** MAILER(`local') must appear after FEATURE(`allmasquerade')*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** MAILER(`local') must appear after FEATURE(`always_add_domain')*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** ERROR: FEATURE() should be before MAILER()
*** FEATURE(smrsh) must occur before MAILER(local)
*** ERROR: MAILER(local) already included
*** ERROR: MAILER(smtp) already included
Updating access_db ...
Updating ALIAS_FILE ...
The following file(s) have changed:
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf
** ** You should issue `/etc/init.d/sendmail reload` ** **
Mail Transport Agent: sendmail is not running
done.

Nasty, right? Yeah.

The Fix

Get rid of it, and install Postfix instead.

sudo apt-get remove sendmail
sudo apt-get autoremove

but the remove actually leaves 2 files which still leaves you with an error!

The Real Fix

remove these:
/etc/network/if-up.d/sendmail
/etc/network/if-down.d/sendmail

I’ve noticed its been much much more stable since sendmail has been gone.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Linux, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.