Re: Sendmail problems

Hi peterr, I seem to have made you fall in love with sysopen. Fact - mostly you don't use it, you use plain open.

OK so you have this code:

open(SENDMAIL, '|/usr/sbin/sendmail -oi -t')
   or (unlink ($outfile),
    diehtml("Can't fork for sendmail: $!\n"));
[download]

First the syntax would usually be:

open(SENDMAIL, '|/usr/sbin/sendmail -oi -t')
   or do{ unlink($outfile); diehtml("Can't fork for sendmail: $!\n")};
[download]

Although what you have is valid. There are two parts to this line. The open() and the do{} joined by an or. How this works is this. If open works it returns 1 (true), if it fails it returns 0 (fail).

TRUE or do{does not get done}
FALSE or do{does get done}
[download]

Where the TRUE/FALSE return value from open determines if the or do{} gets executed.

So presuming you are right (I don't see how this will hang) there is an issue with sendmail. What the open is doing is opening a pipe | to the sendmail binary onto the filehandle SENDMAIL. You will then be doing this:

print SENDMAIL $msg
close SENDMAIL;
[download]

I presume you are sure it hangs in the open ie you have:

warn "Before SENDMAIL open\n";
open(SENDMAIL.....)
warn "After open\n";
[download]

And have checked the error logs to confirm that this is exactly the problem.....If it is really hanging on that open then I suggest you have a real probelem with your host. Remember you had hanging with another shell call to lockfile (that should not of hung either)

You can test sendmail on the command line:

[root@devel3 root]# which sendmail
/usr/sbin/sendmail
[root@devel3 root]# /usr/sbin/sendmail -t
To: root@localhost

Hello Me!
.
[root@devel3 root]# tail /var/mail/root
Received: (from root@localhost)
        by devel3.XXXXXXXXXX.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) id h933ZZq18591;
        Fri, 3 Oct 2003 03:35:35 GMT
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 03:35:35 GMT
From: root <root@devel3.XXXXXXXXX.org>
Message-Id: <200310030335.h933ZZq18591@devel3.XXXXXXXXX.org>
To: root@devel3.XXXXXXXXX.org

Hello Me!

[root@devel3 root]#
[download]

You can use sendmail directly as shown. The . on the line by itself lets sendmail know you are done.

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

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Re: Re: Sendmail problems by peterr (Scribe) on Oct 03, 2003 at 04:36 UTC
Hi tachyon, Thanks for your reply, yes, I started to go a bit overboard with 'sysopen'. I have modified the code as you suggested `open(SENDMAIL, '\|/usr/sbin/sendmail -oi -t') or do{ unlink($outfile); diehtml("Can't fork for sendmail: $!\n")};` [download] and the explanation helped a lot to get a better idea of this. You will then be doing this: `print SENDMAIL $msg close SENDMAIL;` [download] Yes, there are pages of text, just beforehand though, is this `print SENDMAIL <<"EOF";` [download] .. and at the end `EOF close(SENDMAIL) or warn "sendmail didn't close nicely";` [download] I have PRINT instaed of the 'warn'. I actually added the 'warn' lines as you suggested, but they didn't appear. That just could be because, for testing, I'm just hitting the BACK button twice, because I'm lazy and don't want to fill in all those details on the order form again. What I'm saying is, even though I changed the Perl script, uploaded it, it may not have ben 'reloaded' in the browser. Hmm, that's not true, I have added extra 'prints' in the last few days, and they appeared immediately. Anyway, onto SSH access and sendmail; now I'm _really_ confused, here's the output --------------------------------- which sendmail which: no sendmail in (/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin) /usr/sbin/sendmail -t 2003-10-03 04:03:17 Exim configuration error in line 783: user mailman was not found ---------------------------------- .... but in the CPanel it says Path to sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail and I run FormMail.pl (NMS version) on 2 domains on the same server, without any problems ? NMS have this line though `L<CGI::NMS::Mailer::Sendmail>` ... so it looks like they have their own 'sendmail' modules, is that right ? Looks like I'd better post to the Help Desk where the server is. :) Thanks a lot, Peter	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Re: Sendmail problems by idsfa (Vicar) on Oct 03, 2003 at 04:44 UTC
Welcome to "compatibility". Your Linux box does not even have sendmail installed. It has exim, which is a perfectly fine email system that can pretend to be sendmail for many purposes. (This is another reason I always try to use Net::SMTP ... I know I'm always getting the same interface). Further, it looks like your exim has configuration problems. Someone with root access needs to run eximconfig(8) and get it working properly before you have a chance to make your scripts work ... Remember, when you stare long into the abyss, you could have been home eating ice cream.	[reply]