Problems sending mail apache/php

Anon

I'm having a problem sending mail off with the mail() function of php.
Now I know for a fact that it's not php's fault, but hopefully someone who has come upon and defeat the same problem can be of help.
Now when I try to send mail out I get this error in /var/log/syslog
Dec 11 21:05:08 (domain) sendmail[11612]: fBC458K11612: SYSERR(nobody): Can't crea
te transcript file ./xffBC458K11612: Permission denied
Dec 11 21:05:08 (domain) sendmail[11612]: fBC458K11612: SYSERR(nobody): Cannot cre
ate ./dffBC458K11612: Permission denied

I am aware that this is just sendmail not giving apache (user nobody) the required permission to write to /var/spool/mqueue, and I cannot figure out how to get it too.
I have added nobody to the trusted user list in sendmail, and I have gotten the same error. The only thing that I was able to do was to chmod 777 it which did get it working. I do not wish to have my mail queue world writable.

Apache is 1.3.22 source install
php is 4.0.6 source install
sendmail 8.11.0 out of the box

Thank you in advance for anyone that might be of help.

Mitchell Kelsey

nashirak

From the sendmail man page (they are helpful):

sendmail attempts to create a queue file in the maildrop directory. If that directory is not world-writable, the message is piped through the postdrop(1) command, which is expected to execute with suitable privileges.

so next question... Is postdrop installed???

Man from postdrop:

The postdrop command is automatically invoked by the sendmail(1) mail posting agent when the maildrop queue directory is not world-writable.

Hope that Helps!

Anon

You know, I had actually checked the sendmail man page. And after I had checked this post I took another look at it and I still couldn't find it.
So I ran a search for postdrop and soon found that it part of postfix. I was using sendmail, not postfix.
I had looked into postfix and it seemed to be a better selection in mail relay anyway.
So I removed sendmail and installed postfix, now all of my mail transport from php works perfectly!
Your post helped me find what I needed, thank you!

Mitchell Kelsey

nashirak

Muhahaha... another person has turned to the darkside of postfix. 🙂