[NTLUG:Discuss] HELP! Upgrade went bad! My email server is DOWN!!!!!!

[Stephen Davidson]

<RANT>
I HATE IT when things that should "Just work" don't!  I have already 
spent just under two days (about 10hrs so far) working on this, and I 
can't afford the downtime anymore!

I was trying to upgrade my server from SuSE 8.1 to SuSE 9.2, as well as 
configure a backup server so that my webserver would have a backup.  
After a Motherboard Failure on the backup server was fixed by the fine 
folks over at Alter, the OS install went smoothly.  KDE, networking, 
etc, was installed.  SSH is up and running.  Mailman and Sendmail, that 
is when things got F-----D up.  The server was running a couple of 
mailing lists, including for the DFW J2EE SIG.  But Sendmail and Mailman 
won't play nice, and this Java Dude does not have enough Linux in him to 
fix this.  I have about 2 days before mail servers start dumping my 
incoming email.  (This was sent using alternate accounts).  I am 
desparate!  My client can't email me right now, and it is all cause some 
config settings were changed, and NOT DOCUMENTED!!!! I have found, and 
fixed some of the stuff, but I am still down and out!
</rant>

This WAS working fine in SuSE 8.1.  I was not expecting a step backwards 
during upgrade.

<Details>
sendmail-8.13.1-5
mailman-2.1.5-5
OS: SuSE 9.2

blue:~ # newaliases -v
/etc/aliases: 40 aliases, longest 10 bytes, 465 bytes total
hash map "Alias1": unsafe map file /etc/aliases.d/mailman.db: Permission 
denied
WARNING: cannot open alias database /etc/aliases.d/mailman
Cannot create database for alias file /etc/aliases.d/mailman
blue:~ # ls -l /etc/aliases.d
total 6
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 1024 Dec  6 06:49 .
drwxr-xr-x  68 root root 5120 Dec  6 20:47 ..
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root   29 Dec  6 06:49 mailman -> 
/var/lib/mailman/data/aliases
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root   32 Dec  6 06:49 mailman.db -> 
/var/lib/mailman/data/aliases.db
blue:~ # grep -i dontblame /etc/sendmail.cf
#O 
DontBlameSendmail=GroupWritableDirPathSafe,AssumeSafeChown,TrustStickyBit,GroupReadableSASLDBFile,GroupWritableAliasFile,WriteMapToSymLink
O 
DontBlameSendmail=GroupWritableDirPathSafe,AssumeSafeChown,TrustStickyBit,GroupReadableSASLDBFile,GroupWritableAliasFile,WriteMapToSymLink
blue:~ #
</details>

I checked the file permissions from a partial backup I made of the 8.1 
system before the upgrade (I have the old /var/lib/mailman directory 
handy).  The file permissions are the same!

SO WTH changed between 8.1 & 9.2 that the settings and permissions are 
no longer functional?????

This has my systems email completely down, so please either respond to 
my alternate address above, or feel free to call me at the number in my 
SIG. I am VERY DESPERATE!

-Steve

-- 
Java/J2EE Developer/Integrator
Stephen Davidson and Associates, Inc.
Past Chair, Dallas/FortWorth J2EE Sig
214-724-7741