On 2002-01-19 at 10:59 +1100, Bruce Leo wrote:
> I'm hoping this one won't be too difficult to solve.
You don't provide enough information to be sure, really.
But we can make some educated guesses.
> This is the
> error I get when I attempt to send email via a formmail.pl script
> on the server. The odd thing is that it does send the email when
> I don't specify the hiddden field "redirect". Very odd
Which "formmail.pl" script? There are many. What is it trying to do?
How is the system set up to deliver mail?
But on to the educated guess.
> 2002-01-18 15:36:33 16RiYj-0001sn-00 ==
> nobody@??? T=local_delivery defer (13):
> Permission denied: failed to create directories for //mail:
> Permission denied
> 2002-01-18 15:36:33 16RiYj-0001sn-00 **
> nobody@???: retry timeout exceeded
> 2002-01-18 15:36:33 16RiYj-0001sn-00 nobody@???:
> error ignored
> 2002-01-18 15:36:33 16RiYj-0001sn-00 Completed
Does your local_delivery transport specify something like:
file = $home/mail
or:
file = ${local_part}:$home/mail
?
The "nobody" user exists. It normally exists on all Unix systems. Its
home-directory is typically something like "/" or "/nonexistent". It
looks as though yours has a home directory of "/". You're sending mail
to nobody@, it then extracts the home directory and shoves "/mail" on
the end, to get a result of "//mail" and be told that it can't set up
that directory.
Typically, a system will have an 'aliases' file, eg "/etc/aliases" or
"/etc/mail/aliases"; in that file will be some redirections for system
accounts, so that the mail goes to a system administrator. Either your
file is missing some important entries, or you're not using it. If it's
missing entries, then add entries for all the system accounts which
shouldn't receive mail themselves, instead supplying a more suitable
recipient. If not ...
Take a look at the "system_aliases" director in the default
configuration ("src/configure.default" in the source tarball, or section
40 of The Exim Specification); take a look around under /etc/ and see if
you can spot the "aliases" file. If it's not in either of the two
places which I suggested above, then try:
# find /etc/ -name aliases -print
HTH,
--
The Pentium II is a 32-bit exercise in engineering cowardice.
If it's fast, it's because it's trying to run away from AMD's K-6.
