[exim] Resolving " run initgroups(): no passwd entry for uid…

Hi All

I've been setting up an Exim MTA for a bugzilla server.

One of the problems I've come across is the following error in
"/var/log/maillog"

" run initgroups(): no passwd entry for uid=93"
" <servername> exim[3122]: 2006-10-03 13:31:10 Cannot open main log
file "/var/log/exim/main.log"

This occurs everytime I start exim.

These two errors are related to one another. Some background info first though.

The Box Specs:
Intel PIII 800mhz with 512mb RAM
Fedora Core 5

I firstly installed exim 4-62-2 from source (tar.gz).
Part of the build and make process is to edit a "Makefile" with
parameters which are passed to the "make" command.

Now part of this process requires you to create a user and group that
the exim daemon will run as. Root is very bad according to the docs,
so I created a user called "exim". Note that when a took a look in the
/etc/passwd file, the UID for Exim was set to 503 and the GID 504.

I then removed this installation and installed Exim with yum (so an
RPM essentially) and it setup everything for me. BUT.
It appears that the rpm, once installed creates an exim user and sets
the UID and GID to 93.

As I created the user and group prior to installing the rpm, the user
and group was already there but with a GID and UID of 503 and 504.

" run initgroups(): no passwd entry for uid=93" means that exim is
having a look in the passwd file (or whatever mechanism is used to get
the auth info for local accounts) and not finding a user with an UID
of 93 and a group with a GID of 93.

Secondly, " <servername> exim[3122]: 2006-10-03 13:31:10 Cannot open
main log file "/var/log/exim/main.log". Exim seems to be very specific
in it's user and group permissions, so if he UID or GID is different
from what was originally compiled in the rpm, Exim panics.

Also note that this could occur from an upgrade or update of exim.

Steps to resolve this problem.

1.) Delete and lock files that may stop exim starting.
Remove these two files
/var/locks/subsys/exim
/var/run/exim.pid

This will get rid of the "exim dead subsys locked...."

2.) Next vi /etc/passwd and change the GID and UID of the exim user in the file.

I.E
Change from

exim:x:500:501:root:/home/exim:/bin/bash

To

exim:x:93:93:root:/home/exim:/bin/bash

3.) Next goto /var/log
Set the permissions on the exim folder so they are correct.
I.E chown -R exim.exim exim

Start up exim with a service exim start or /etc/init.d/./exim start

Now do a /etc/init.d/./exim status, and exim should now be running!