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From: stephen@dcl-cs.UUCP (Stephen J. Muir)
Newsgroups: net.bugs.4bsd,net.unix
Subject: Re: Bug in "/usr/lib/sendmail" in SUN UNIX release 2.0.
Message-ID: <674@dcl-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 19:16:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: dcl-cs.674
Posted: Mon Oct 14 19:16:13 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Oct-85 20:12:23 EDT
References: <669@dcl-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: stephen@dcl-cs.UUCP (Stephen J. Muir)
Organization: Department of Computing at Lancaster University.
Lines: 28
Xref: linus net.bugs.4bsd:1503 net.unix:5323
Summary: FREEZE THE CONFIGURATION FILE AT YOUR OWN RISK
Xpath: icdoc ivax

In article <669@dcl-cs.UUCP> I wrote:
>If you are running the above mentioned system then do *not* use the "-bz" flag
>of "/usr/lib/sendmail" and ensure that the file "/usr/lib/sendmail.fc" doesn't
>exist.  Otherwise, the wrong bits of "/usr/lib/sendmail" may be overwritten on
>execution causing strange behaviour.

I've been asked to clarify this.  What I meant is that "/usr/lib/sendmail",
when it runs, overwrites itself in an erroneous way when it pulls in the
"sendmail.fc" file.  This has been reported to SUN microsystems.

I agree that freezing the configuration file is the best way but,
unfortunately, this bug may cause unpredictable things to happen.  It may seem
to work for *you* but "sendmail" may do the wrong thing at some stage depending
what the exact contents of your configuration file are.

The effect of this bug, in my case, was that sendmail closed the ethernet
connection immediately it was established (without even printing the
introductory message).  You may find that nothing *seems* to go wrong or that
something else goes wrong.  In any case, it's unsafe.

I have demonstrated this to be a bug to SUN microsystems and it is being
investigated.
-- 
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