Mailing List Archive: Help! Qmail won't start!

Help! Qmail won't start!

Mar 11, 1997, 2:25 PM

Post #1 of 4 (708 views)

If anyone can help me, I'd certainly appreciate it!

Here's the deal:

I installed qmail once before (on a test machine) with no problems, it runs
fine, I'm very happy.

To save a little time for when I do the swap-over on the main machine, I
decided to compile and test qmail early, before I had to copy all the
mailboxes from [shudder...] /var/mail/*, etc. etc. etc.

[.I also think that Sendmail on that machine is disallowing some mail to go
to my qmail machine, which is why I stepped up the conversion timetable...]

Anyway, I installed the qmail users (and double-checked against the test
machine) ran all the makefiles, etc. It seemed to compile fine, qmail-check
doesn't yell or anything, but when I issue the line:

mail# env - PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" qmail-start splogger qmail &
[1]
2528
mail#
[1] Exit 111 env - ...

This is all I get. Contrary to the docs there are no entries in the syslog
whatsoever about qmail... no msgs saying its running, cannot start, the
programmer's a moron (me, not djb), aw shit, anything!

I'm running Solaris 2.5 on a Sun Netra i5 (SuperSparc, I think...) with
64Meg RAM, 4G HD, and [blech...] Sun's version of Sendmail (8.6.2 I think,
but not sure) [[taken from header: (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) ]]

Here's the qmail-stuff from /etc/passwd:

alias:x:30001:101::/var/qmail/alias:/sbin/sh
qmaild:x:30002:101::/var/qmail:/sbin/sh
qmaill:x:30003:101::/var/qmail:/sbin/sh
qmailp:x:30004:101::/var/qmail:/sbin/sh
qmailq:x:30005:102::/var/qmail:/sbin/sh
qmailr:x:30006:102::/var/qmail:/sbin/sh
qmails:x:30007:102::/var/qmail:/sbin/sh

and from /etc/group:

nofiles::101:
qmail::102:

Also, has anyone out there modified the S88sendmail script successfully for
qmail? I could probably do it, but it scares me because if I make one
booboo I don't want to reboot a dozen times if the script doesn't work
correctly...

Thanks in advance for any light y'all may be able to shed on my dark little
world... ;-)

Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | Everyone complained to me to change my .sig,
Programmer, NorthernWay | but no-one could recommend something better.
zmerch@northernway.net | So you'll have to put up with this *junk*
| until I find some new wisdom to share.

Re: Help! Qmail won't start! [ In reply to ]

wooledge at kellnet

Mar 11, 1997, 6:21 PM

Post #2 of 4 (696 views)

Permalink

On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Roger Merchberger wrote:

> mail# env - PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" qmail-start splogger qmail &
> [1]
> 2528
> mail#
> [1] Exit 111 env - ...

Perhaps there's no "env" program in your PATH before this statement
is executed...?

In any case, the command above is not in what I consider an intuitive
style. (I think Dan wanted a one-liner that would work under either
Bourne or C shell.) I use the following command:

PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" qmail-start splogger qmail &

This is Bourne shell syntax. Your startup scripts should be running
under a Bourne-compatible shell. (If you're using csh in your startup,
then you have serious problems.)

> Also, has anyone out there modified the S88sendmail script successfully for
> qmail?

I wouldn't recommend doing so. Rename the link so that it doesn't
start with a capital S. Then create a new file which starts up qmail.
This goes into the directory the links point to (probably /etc/init.d
or /sbin/init.d). Then create a new link pointing to it (you can call
it S88qmail if you wish). Here's what I'm doing on my highly customized
Linux system:

phoenix:~$ cat /etc/init.d/mail
case "$1" in
start) PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" qmail-start splogger qmail & ;;
stop) /sbin/start-stop-daemon -K -x /var/qmail/bin/qmail-send ;;
*) echo "** ERROR: must specify 'start' or 'stop'" 1>&2 ;;
esac
phoenix:~$ ls -l /etc/rc2.d/*mail
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Feb 9 22:39 /etc/rc2.d/S38mail -> ../init.d/mail*

(Sorry for the long line -- that points to '../init.d/mail'.)

As you can see, this resembles the Solaris startup configuration, so you
should be able to use this as-is, except for the start-stop-daemon part.
You'll need to write something else to stop the daemon, if you wish to
have that functionality.

Don't forget to "turn off" (rename) any other links that point to the
original Solaris sendmail-starting script. Anything that begins with
a capital "S" (start) or capital "K" (kill) is active.

------------ Greg Wooledge -------------
------- <wooledge@kellnet.com> -------
--- <http://kellnet.com/wooledge/main.html> ---

Re: Help! Qmail won't start! [ In reply to ]

jtc at cygnus

Mar 11, 1997, 6:40 PM

Post #3 of 4 (697 views)

Permalink

>> mail# env - PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" qmail-start splogger qmail &
>> [1]
>> 2528
>> mail#
>> [1] Exit 111 env - ...

> Perhaps there's no "env" program in your PATH before this statement
> is executed...?
>
> In any case, the command above is not in what I consider an intuitive
> style. (I think Dan wanted a one-liner that would work under either
> Bourne or C shell.) I use the following command:
>
> PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" qmail-start splogger qmail &

Note that "env - ..." also causes the environment that would otherwise
be inherited by qmail-start to be ignored. I suspect that that is the
reason "env - ..." is recommended.

--jtc

Re: Help! Qmail won't start! [ In reply to ]

hanche at imf

Mar 12, 1997, 2:23 AM

Post #4 of 4 (697 views)

Permalink

[ Greg Wooledge <wooledge@kellnet.com> 1997-3 -11 20:21 -0500 ]
|---
| On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Roger Merchberger wrote:
|
| > mail# env - PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" qmail-start splogger qmail &
| > [1]
| > 2528
| > mail#
| > [1] Exit 111 env - ...
|
| Perhaps there's no "env" program in your PATH before this statement
| is executed...?

No, then he would get a "no such file or directory" or similar error.

I have found that splogger often does not work on my Solaris systems.
Setting the permission of /dev/conslog to 662 appears to cure the
problem.
As a test, you should try the command

echo Testing | /var/qmail/bin/splogger qmail

_as an ordinary user, not as root_. If a message appears in the log, then
at least splogger works. Then you may reasonably hope that whatever
problem qmail-start has will show up in the log. If all else fails, try
running instead

truss -f -o somefile \
env - PATH="/var/qmail/bin:$PATH" qmail-start splogger qmail &

and look for clues in somefile afterwards.

- Harald