Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!sulu.cc.rochester.edu!msir From: msir@sulu.cc.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: Intermittent .forward problem Message-ID: <9023@ur-cc.UUCP> Date: 21 Aug 90 21:35:35 GMT References: <9012@ur-cc.UUCP> <9015@ur-cc.UUCP> Sender: news@uhura.cc.rochester.edu Reply-To: Mark Sirota Lines: 35 In article <9012@ur-cc.UUCP> I write: > Sometimes, and I do mean sometimes, our sendmail seems to be ignoring > .forward files, and delivering locally instead. I really appreciate all the mail I'm getting regarding this problem. It's unfortunate that almost everyone is answering a question that I didn't ask. Let me try to rephrase it. > This is happening under SunOS 4.0.3, using Sun's sendmail 4.1 (that's the > version number that the $v macro gives, anyway). I've only seen it happen > on one system, but that doesn't mean it's not happening elsewhere. The > home directories on this system are remote-mounted by NFS. The problem is *not* that the home directories aren't available. They are *ALWAYS* mounted. In fact, they are mounted before the sendmail daemon starts up, so it has nothing to do with delivery at boot time before the directories exist. The problem is also *not* file permissions - the .forward files in question exist and are readable by everyone, including root, so it has nothing to do with root privileges on an NFS-mounted filesystem. As I said before, It's more like the .forward file seems to be intermittently disappearing. Two people suggested that the NFS mount might be having problems at those times; this sounds reasonable but I don't have any proof. /var/adm/messages does not contain any NFS, RPC, sendmail, or reboot messages anywhere near the time of the misdelivered messages. Once again, I appreciate everyone's comments here. But it's not as simple as you all seem to be hoping... -- Mark Sirota - University of Rochester Computing Center, Rochester NY Internet: msir@cc.rochester.edu Bitnet: msir@uordbv.bitnet UUCP: {decvax,harvard,ames,rutgers}!rochester!ur-cc!msir