Hi

I work in a small Portuguese University. We have several servers with
sendmail (latest version on debian unstable, believe it is 8.13.8)

Recently users began complaining that they weren0t getting messages
and on the logs there is the (in)famous message "SYSERR (root):
collect: I/O error ...". I've checked this group and the best I could
get was someone saying that this is caused by bad connectivity, wich
in a way fits into our profile (our circuit is toped out most of the
time) but today I made a discovery that has made me a bit unsafe about
this:

I went to mxtoolbox.com and used their diagnotics tool (I have to
admit that I don't know how reliable it is) but it always says that
the transaction time on our servers is high (between 6 to 10 seconds)
which would confirm my previous assumption, except that two servers
(not directly admined by me) using Postfix present good times (1 to 2
seconds).

On the main server I admit that this can be caused by several things
that were aded (DNSBL, etc.) but on one of the servers the
configuration is minimal and the result is similar. I send you the
sendmail.mc so that you can see it

divert(-1)dnl
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# $Sendmail: debproto.mc,v 8.12.3 2002-04-15 17:35:56 cowboy Exp $
#
# Copyright (c) 1998-2002 Richard Nelson. All Rights Reserved.
#
# ./cf/debian/sendmail.mc. Generated from sendmail.mc.in by
configure.
#
# sendmail.mc prototype config file for building Sendmail 8.12.3
#
# Note: the .in file supports 8.7.6 - 8.12.3, but the generated
# file is customized to the version noted above.
#
# This file is used to configure Sendmail for use with Debian systems.
#
# If you modify this file, you will have to regenerate /etc/mail/
sendmail.cf
# by running this file through the m4 preprocessor via one of the
following:
# * `sendmailconfig`
# * `make`
# * `m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf`
# The first two options are preferred as they will also update other
files
# that depend upon the contents of this file.
#
# The best documentation for this .mc file is:
# /usr/share/doc/sendmail-doc/cf.README.gz
#
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
divert(0)dnl
#
# Copyright (c) 1998-2002 Richard Nelson. All Rights Reserved.
#
# This file is used to configure Sendmail for use with Debian
systems.
#
define(`_USE_ETC_MAIL_')dnl
include(`/usr/share/sendmail/cf/m4/cf.m4')dnl
include(`/etc/mail/tls/starttls.m4')dnl
VERSIONID(`$Id: sendmail.mc, v 8.12.3-4 2002-04-15 17:35:56 cowboy Exp
$')
OSTYPE(`debian')dnl
DOMAIN(`debian-mta')dnl
dnl # Items controlled by /etc/mail/sendmail.conf - DO NOT TOUCH HERE
dnl undefine(`confHOST_STATUS_DIRECTORY')dnl
#DAEMON_HOSTSTATS
dnl # Items controlled by /etc/mail/sendmail.conf - DO NOT TOUCH HERE
dnl #
dnl # General defines
dnl #
dnl # SAFE_FILE_ENV: [undefined] If set, sendmail will do a chroot()
dnl # into this directory before writing files.
dnl # If *all* your user accounts are under /home then use that
dnl # instead - it will prevent any writes outside of /home !
dnl # define(`confSAFE_FILE_ENV', `')dnl
LOCAL_CONFIG
FEATURE(`masquerade_envelope')dnl
FEATURE(`virtusertable')dnl
Cwneptuno.uevora.pt
FEATURE(`use_cw_file')dnl
FEATURE(`use_ct_file')dnl
FEATURE(`smrsh')dnl
FEATURE(access_db)dnl
FEATURE(`blacklist_recipients')dnl
FEATURE(relay_entire_domain)dnl
FEATURE(`local_procmail')dnl
define(`confMAX_MESSAGE_SIZE', `20000000')dnl
MAILER_DEFINITIONS
MAILER(local)dnl
MAILER(smtp)dnl

LOCAL_CONFIG
## Custom configurations below (will be preserved)
O PrivacyOptions=authwarnings,noexpn,novrfy

I include the name so that you can do some tess if you like (it's an
old machine not really being used).

IS there any good reason for this diference in times? Is there
anything I can change?

Thanks

Hi again

I figured out what was causing the bigtimes: ident, so i added
confTO_IDENT = 0 to sendmail.mc

But i still get the I/O errors in a undeterministic way, for example:

- we get messages from gmal, but some are failing
- some small messages fail while others, bigger get through

We are waiting for an upgrade on our connection to the Internet, but
till then is there anything I can do?

Thanks again


mario.filipe@gmail.com escreveu:
> Hi
>
> I work in a small Portuguese University. We have several servers with
> sendmail (latest version on debian unstable, believe it is 8.13.8)
>

Hi it''s me again

And yes I am prety desperate...

I really can't find an explanation for what is going on so I'm sending
another piece of info that might be relevant:

we recently moved from an Iptables based firewall to a Cisco ASA (so
far we found out that starttls is no longer working, but could this
have anything to do with the problems we are having?

Thanks.


mario.filipe@gmail.com escreveu:
> Hi again
>
> I figured out what was causing the bigtimes: ident, so i added
> confTO_IDENT = 0 to sendmail.mc
>
> But i still get the I/O errors in a undeterministic way, for example:
>
> - we get messages from gmal, but some are failing
> - some small messages fail while others, bigger get through
>
> We are waiting for an upgrade on our connection to the Internet, but
> till then is there anything I can do?
>
> Thanks again
>
>
> mario.filipe@gmail.com escreveu:
> > Hi
> >
> > I work in a small Portuguese University. We have several servers with
> > sendmail (latest version on debian unstable, believe it is 8.13.8)
> >

On May 16, 6:58 pm, "mario.fil...@gmail.com" <mario.fil...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi it''s me again
>
> And yes I am prety desperate...
>
> I really can't find an explanation for what is going on so I'm sending
> another piece of info that might be relevant:
>
> we recently moved from an Iptables based firewall to a Cisco ASA (so
> far we found out that starttls is no longer working, but could this
> have anything to do with the problems we are having?

It has to do with the PIX and its configuration.

Remove (e)smtp fixup from the ASA/PIX configuration

Hi

This hasn't totally soved the problem, but I believe it ed.

Thanks jmaimon


jmaimon@ttec.com escreveu:
> On May 16, 6:58 pm, "mario.fil...@gmail.com" <mario.fil...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi it''s me again
> >
> > And yes I am prety desperate...
> >
> > I really can't find an explanation for what is going on so I'm sending
> > another piece of info that might be relevant:
> >
> > we recently moved from an Iptables based firewall to a Cisco ASA (so
> > far we found out that starttls is no longer working, but could this
> > have anything to do with the problems we are having?
>
> It has to do with the PIX and its configuration.
>
> Remove (e)smtp fixup from the ASA/PIX configuration