I've been having problems ever since a recent upgrade. We moved from
one system to a round-robin of three relay servers that perform virus
scanning, then forward the mail to an internal host that does delivery.

Every once in a while (like 5 or 6 times per day), a message will fail
with the dreaded

554 5.3.5 Local configuration error

error. Messages before and after it, even to the same address, work
fine. I even installed a caching DNS server locally to ensure that DNS
problems weren't responsible.

I really want to see what sendmail is doing internally when the error
occurs. I can see detailed output with the -d flags, but is there a
way to log this for every transaction? I can log SMTP transactions
with -X and output debugging info with -d, but I don't see any way to
put it into a single file. Instead, it seems to display the debugging
information on the client's SMTP connection. How can I log this so
that I can backtrack later once the configuration error is tickled?

Thanks for any insight,

Chris

Christopher P. Lindsey wrote:

> Every once in a while (like 5 or 6 times per day), a message will fail
> with the dreaded
>
> 554 5.3.5 Local configuration error
>
> error. Messages before and after it, even to the same address, work
> fine. I even installed a caching DNS server locally to ensure that DNS
> problems weren't responsible.

Looks like a response from a remote server saying that there (at that
server) is a configuration error. But as you have put the error message
out of its context I cann't be sure.
Please post the whole log line, or even better all lines of that
failing message.

Were those "Messages before and after it, even to the same address"
delivered to the same remote server?

Regards,

Kees.

--
Kees Theunissen.

> Looks like a response from a remote server saying that there (at that
> server) is a configuration error. But as you have put the error message
> out of its context I cann't be sure.
> Please post the whole log line, or even better all lines of that
> failing message.

Here's the complete syslog entry:

Nov 1 13:25:32 host sendmail[6024]: kA1JPWqm006024: Milter: no
active filter
Nov 1 13:25:32 host sendmail[6024]: kA1JPWqm006024:
from=<xxxxxxxxxxxxx@aol.com>, size=2968, class=0, nrcpts=1,
msgid=<bc0.449b42c.327a4e9f@aol.com>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA,
relay=foo.example.edu [10.0.0.1]
Nov 1 13:25:32 host sendmail[6024]: kA1JPWqm006024:
to=<devnull@example.com>, delay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=32968,
stat=queued
Nov 1 13:27:05 host sendmail[6028]: kA1JPWqm006024:
to=<devnull@example.com>, delay=00:01:33, xdelay=00:00:00,
mailer=esmtp, pri=122968, relay=mail.example.com., dsn=5.3.5,
stat=Local configuration error
Nov 1 13:27:05 host sendmail[6028]: kA1JPWqm006024: kA1JPXgs006028:
DSN: Local configuration error
Nov 1 13:27:29 host sendmail[6028]: kA1JPWqm006024: kA1JPXgt006028:
postmaster notify: Local configuration error
Nov 1 13:27:29 host sendmail[6028]: kA1JPWqm006024: done;
delay=00:01:57, ntries=1

Obviously, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

> Were those "Messages before and after it, even to the same address"
> delivered to the same remote server?

Yes. There is only one remote server. The external relay servers
forward to the same host via
mailertable entries.

Although I'd love to solve this problem through the list, what I'm
really looking for is a way to log what's happening -- having logs
could with all kinds of other problems.

Thanks for any ,

Chris

Christopher P. Lindsey wrote:

> I really want to see what sendmail is doing internally when the error
> occurs. I can see detailed output with the -d flags, but is there a
> way to log this for every transaction? I can log SMTP transactions
> with -X and output debugging info with -d, but I don't see any way to
> put it into a single file. Instead, it seems to display the debugging
> information on the client's SMTP connection. How can I log this so
> that I can backtrack later once the configuration error is tickled?
>
> Thanks for any insight,
>
> Chris
>

Change the log level in the sendmail.cf file directly, or edit and
compile the sendmail.mc file and do the same. Don't forget to stop and
start sendmail if you do this.

The docs explain quite a bit about what to expect with various
loglevels. These messages go to your syslogger, and it is presumed that
has been configured to log the level of detail you're interested in. A
review of that process's configuration is not a bad idea.

dp

Dennis Peterson wrote:

> Change the log level in the sendmail.cf file directly, or edit and
> compile the sendmail.mc file and do the same. Don't forget to stop and
> start sendmail if you do this.
>
> The docs explain quite a bit about what to expect with various
> loglevels. These messages go to your syslogger, and it is presumed that
> has been configured to log the level of detail you're interested in. A
> review of that process's configuration is not a bad idea.

Perfect! I was so focused on getting sendmail -d -like output that I
could no longer see the forest for the trees.

I'll let the group know if this turns anything up, or I'll come begging
for for the next stage.

Thanks!

Chris