sendmail problem

[Kervin L. Pierre]

Look at /var/log/maillog .  It should give you a brief message on why 
the message was deferred.

eg.
  dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection timed out with mail.domain.com

--Kervin


Dan Bishop wrote:
> Need some help.  Email began acting up yesterday (or over the weekend). 
> We can receive messages OK but we are having problems sending messages. 
> Most don't get sent and the few that do take 3-5 minutes (in Messenger) 
> to send.
> 
> Linux Redhat, Sendmail & Cyrus on the Linux side
> Netscape Messenger (some Outlook) & IMP (webmail) on the client side.
> Novell 5.0 & BorderManager 3.0 on the network.
> 
> Webmail sends messages, but Messenger & Outlook do not.
> 
> I tried to flush the mail queue but it does not work.  I type "sendmail 
> -v -q" at the terminal and we get the message:
> 
> Running /var/spool/mqueue/(a message number) (sequence 1 of 66)
> <email address>... Connecting to cyrus...
> <email address>... Deferred
> 
> If I use Webmin in a browser, and click on the button "Flush Mail Queue" 
> it brings up the following:
> 
> Forcing the attempted delivery of mail with the command 
> /usr/sbin/sendmail -v -q ..
> 
> Running /var/spool/mqueue/g9MINvR03821 (sequence 1 of 67)
> <email_address at bbcnet.edu>... Connecting to cyrus...
> <email_address at bbcnet.edu>... Deferred
> 
> 
> What does the "Deferred" message mean?  And why the difference in number 
> of messages (66 or 67)?  There are more messages in /var/spool/mqueue. 
> Should they not be included in the total number of messages above, in 
> the "queue"?
> 
> We have restarted sendmail a number of times, and have even gone so far 
> as to restart Linux.  But all to no avail.
> 
> I am headed home for the night (to see what I can find on the Internet), 
> but thought to post this message before I leave.
> 
>