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  • 1.  sendmail on AIX 7.2 TL 4 SP2

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu January 21, 2021 12:33 PM

    I have several monitoring scripts that have been running for several years using mailx to send email alerts.  I recently discovered that mailx uses the sendmail binary and that it appears that the sendmail binary may have been deprecated in the version of AIX 7.2 TL4 SP2.  I've traced back and my email alerts stopped after I did the upgrade and they fail with the following message:

     

    /usr/sbin/sendmail: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.

    /usr/sbin/sendmail: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.

     

    Any suggestions on a workaround to mailx on AIX?  I came across this same issue in RHEL 8.3 and I am using postfix there as a replacement. 

     

    Norman Owens, RHCSA 

    Sr. AIX Administrator / Open Systems Architect – Global IS
    Mohawk Industries

    1155 Roberts Boulevard, Ste. 200, Kennesaw, GA 30144
    Phone: 678.355.5853 | Internal: 55853 | Office Main Line: 770.792.6300 | Fax: 678.355.5810
    Email:  norman_owens@mohawkind.com

    CertPowerSystems_color

    mohawk

     



  • 2.  RE: sendmail on AIX 7.2 TL 4 SP2

    Posted Thu January 21, 2021 12:33 PM
    Hi Norman, sendmail is still available with AIX. I suggest you submit a support case to IBM.

    ------------------------------
    Carl Burnett
    DE, Cognitive Systems Software Development
    IBM
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: sendmail on AIX 7.2 TL 4 SP2

    Posted Fri January 22, 2021 05:03 AM
    Hi,
    i ran across a similar issue months ago but, if i remember well,  the problem was related to the sendmai.cf/submit.cf files not to the binaries.
    maybe the root cause could be the same.
    I solved with one of these  apars, can't check now.

    IJ24059 - Issues with 'sendmail' as non-root user on 7200-04
    https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/apar/IJ25999

    Regards

    ------------------------------
    Roberto Celeste
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: sendmail on AIX 7.2 TL 4 SP2

    Posted Fri January 22, 2021 09:43 AM

    on top of this, submit.cf is the default configuration file being referenced. If you made any changes to sendmail.cf,  we need to make same changes to submit.cf. Or else,  you just simply rename sendmail.cf to submit.cf. Backup sendmail.cf first is recommended. 

    Cheers. 




  • 5.  RE: sendmail on AIX 7.2 TL 4 SP2

    Posted Fri January 22, 2021 02:05 PM

    Hi  Norman,

                 AIX upgraded sendmail to have enhanced security features.  Applications like mail/mailx which were earlier using sendmail binary will not directly have access .
     This has been addressed in APAR IJ24059

    IJ24059: ISSUES WITH 'SENDMAIL' AS NON-ROOT USER ON 7200-04 APPLIES TO AIX 7200-04 20/05/15 PTF PECHANGE

    Here is more info ..

    https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/apar/IJ24059

    Hope the above helps
    Ram



    ------------------------------
    RAM PUTTASWAMY
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: sendmail on AIX 7.2 TL 4 SP2

    IBM Champion
    Posted Fri January 22, 2021 04:01 PM

    Thanks everyone for responding.

     

    In my case bos.net.tcp.sendmail was missing.  I did an alt_disk_install to get to 7.2 TL4 SP2 from 7.2 TL3 SP2.

     

    I decided to boot back to TL3 to test and the fileset is present and mailx works fine.

    bos.net.tcp.sendmail      7.2.3.15  COMMITTED  TCP/IP sendmail Applications

     

    I also checked my NIM lppsource and spot and the new fileset is in there. 

     

    So, I booted back to TL4 and manually installed the new fileset. 

    bos.net.tcp.sendmail       7.2.4.1  COMMITTED  TCP/IP sendmail Applications

     

    That created the submit.cf and sendmail.cf files in /etc/mail

     

    Its working now.  Just not sure why the fileset was removed.  I opened a ticket with support. 

     

    Thanks again.

     

     

    Norman Owens, RHCSA 

    Sr. AIX Administrator / Open Systems Architect – Global IS
    Mohawk Industries

    1155 Roberts Boulevard, Ste. 200, Kennesaw, GA 30144
    Phone: 678.355.5853 | Internal: 55853 | Office Main Line: 770.792.6300 | Fax: 678.355.5810
    Email: 
    norman_owens@mohawkind.com

    CertPowerSystems_color

    mohawk

     






  • 7.  RE: sendmail on AIX 7.2 TL 4 SP2

    Posted Fri January 22, 2021 04:26 PM
    Thanks for the update Norman, glad you figured it out and good you created a support case. I will alert AIX support and dev that this is coming.

    ------------------------------
    Carl Burnett
    DE, Cognitive Systems Software Development
    IBM
    ------------------------------