MkLinux Mail Setup Preliminaries

As shipped, MkLinux DR2 has some problems with permissions on the mail spool directory /var/spool/mail. Also, sendmail is not enabled by default. This note describes how to correct these problems.

Set the Mail Spool Directory Permissions

MkLinux DR2 ships with incorrect permissions on the mail spool directory. In order to correct this, you should run the following commands as root:

    # chgrp mail /var/spool/mail
    # chmod 1777 /var/spool/mail

Enable sendmail

By default, sendmail will not run when MkLinux boots. This is not a problem if you don't expect to be exchanging mail with other machines. If you do, you should keep rsmtp from being run out of /etc/inetd.conf and make sure sendmail is started during the boot process and terminated during the shutdown process.

To disable rsmtp, look for a line like this in /etc/inetd.conf:

    smtp  stream  tcp  nowait  root  /usr/sbin/tcpd  /usr/bin/rsmtp -bs

Remove the line or comment it out by putting a "#" character in front of it:

    #smtp  stream  tcp  nowait  root  /usr/sbin/tcpd  /usr/bin/rsmtp -bs

Then send a HUP signal to inetd, or kill inetd and restart it. You can send the signal like this:

    # ps -ax | grep inetd
    125  ?  S    0:00 inetd
    # kill -HUP 125

If you don't signal inetd (or kill and restart it), inetd will continue to listen on the SMTP port and sendmail won't be able to. (The symptom of this will be "address already in use" messages in /var/log/messages.)

To make sure that sendmail is started and stopped during system boot and shutdown, run the following commands as root:

    # cd /etc/rc.d/rc3.d
    # ln -s ../init.d/sendmail.init S30sendmail
    # ln -s ../init.d/sendmail.init K30sendmail

Then you should reboot your system:

    # shutdown -r now

    # /etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail.init start