[unix-history] / usr / src / usr.sbin / sendmail / KNOWNBUGS



	     K N O W N   B U G S   I N   S E N D M A I L
			     (for 8.6.5)


The following are bugs or deficiencies in sendmail that I am aware of
but which have not been fixed in the current release.  You probably
want to get the most up to date version of this from FTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU
in /ucb/sendmail/KNOWNBUGS.

This list is not guaranteed to be complete, especially for fixed bugs.
Many bugs are reported and fixed without ever making it as far as this
file.  See the file RELEASE_NOTES (in the root directory of the sendmail
distribution) for more details.


+----------------------------------------------+
| THE FOLLOWING PROBLEMS ARE STILL OUTSTANDING |
+----------------------------------------------+


* Null bytes are not handled properly.

  Sendmail should handle full binary data.  As it stands, it handles
  any value from 0x01-0xFF in the body and 0x01-0x80 and 0xA0-0xFF in
  the header.  Notably missing is 0x00, which would require a major
  restructuring of the code -- for example, almost no C library support
  could be used to handle strings.

* Duplicate error messages.

  Sometimes identical, duplicate error messages can be generated.  As
  near as I can tell, this is rare and relatively innocuous.

* No "exposed users" in "nullrelay" configuration.

  The "nullrelay" configuration hides all addresses behind the mail
  hub name.  Some sites might prefer to expose some names such as
  root.  This information is always available in Received: lines.

* $c (hop count) macro improperly set.

  The $c macro is supposed to contain the current hop count, for use
  when calling a mailer.  This macro is initialized too early, and
  is always zero (or the value of the -c command line flag, if any).
  This macro will probably be removed entirely in a future release;
  I don't believe there are any mailers left that require it.

* If you EXPN a list or user that has a program mailer, the output of
  EXPN will include ``@local.host.name''.  You can't actually mail to
  this address.  It's not clear what the right behaviour is in this
  circumstance.

* REDIRECT aliases don't work with `n' option.

  If you have option `n' set when you use newaliases and have
  REDIRECT addresses in your aliases file, you'll get the error
  messages during the newaliases instead of when email is sent to
  the address in question.  The workaround is to turn off the `n'
  option.

* MX records that point at non-existent hosts work strangly.

  Consider the DNS records:

	hostH	MX	1 hostA
		MX	2 hostB
	hostA	A	128.32.8.9

  (note that there is no A record for hostB).  If hostA is down,
  an attempt to send to hostH gives "host unknown" -- that is, it
  reflects out the status on the last host it tries, which in this
  case is hostB, which is unknown.  It probably ought to eliminate
  hostB early in processing.

* NAME environment variables with commas break.

  If you define your NAME environment variable to have a comma
  (e.g., ``Lastname, Firstname''), and you are using the $q definition
  that uses ``name <address>'' format, sendmail treats the first and
  last names as two addresses, thus producing a bogus From line.  You
  can work around this by changing the $q definition to use
  ``address (name)''.

* \231 considered harmful.

  Header addresses that have the \231 character (and possibly others
  in the range \201 - \237) behave in odd and usually unexpected ways.

* DEC Alphas (OSF/1 1.3) sometimes time out on sending mail.

  I have one report that DEC Alphas acting as SMTP clients sometimes
  will apparently not see the "250 OK" message in response to the
  dot that indicates the end of the message.  This only happens if
  the message is run from the queue -- if it gets through on first
  try, everything is fine.  I have been unable to reproduce this
  problem at Berkeley.

* accept() problem on SVR4.

  Apparently, the sendmail daemon loop (doing accept()s on the network)
  can get into a wierd state on SVR4; it starts logging ``SYSERR:
  getrequests: accept: Protocol Error''.  The workaround is to kill
  and restart the sendmail daemon.  We don't have an SVR4 system at
  Berkeley that carries more than token mail load, so I can't validate
  this.  It is likely to be a glitch in the sockets emulation, since
  "Protocol Error" is not possible error code with Berkeley TCP/IP.

  I've also had someone report the message ``sendmail: accept:
  SIOCGPGRP failed errno 22'' on an SVR4 system.  This message is
  not in the sendmail source code, so I assume it is also a bug
  in the sockets emulation.  (Errno 22 is EINVAL "Invalid Argument"
  on all the systems I have available, including Solaris 2.x.)

* Sending user deletion not done properly in :include: lists.

  If you don't have the "m" (me too) option set, then a person
  sending to a list that contains themselves should not get a copy
  of the message.  However, if that list points to a :include: file
  that has one address per line, this will break, and the sender
  will always get a copy of their own message, just as though the
  "m" option were set.

  You can eliminate this by adding commas at the end of each line
  of the :include: file.


+-------------------------------------------+
| THE FOLLOWING PROBLEMS ARE FIXED IN 8.6.5 |
+-------------------------------------------+

* Route-addrs missing angle brackets.

  There are cases where route-addrs do not get angle brackets around them,
  such as in the "-r" flag on mailers or in the From_ line created when
  mailing to files.

* No "exposed users" in "nullrelay" configuration.

  The "nullrelay" configuration hides all addresses behind the mail
  hub name.  Some sites might prefer to expose some names such as
  root.  This information is always available in Received: lines.

* owner-* alias that uses :include: broken.

  If you have aliases set up as:

	owner-listname:		:include:/some/file

  sendmail will break because it considers this a "sender address",
  which is not permitted to use the :include: syntax.  The easiest
  workaround is to change this to:

	owner-listname:		:include:/some/file,

  (note the trailing comma); a somewhat cleaner solution is to use:

	owner-listname:		listname-request
	listname-request:	:include:/some/file

* "SYSERR: openmailer(local): fd 1 not open" message

  File descriptor 1 (standard output) should not be closed during normal
  processing.  This is checked periodically, and sometimes this condition
  is found and this message is produced.  Sendmail repairs the problem,
  and the mail is still delivered, but I still don't know why it happens.
  (There was a bug that was fixed in 8.6.beta.13 that might be related,
  but I think this bug still exists.)

(Version 8.15, last updated %G%)
Commit	Line	Data
0ad2abd3 EA	1
	2
	3	K N O W N B U G S I N S E N D M A I L
f09ef082	4	(for 8.6.5)
0ad2abd3	5
0ad2abd3 EA	6
	7	The following are bugs or deficiencies in sendmail that I am aware of
	8	but which have not been fixed in the current release. You probably
	9	want to get the most up to date version of this from FTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU
	10	in /ucb/sendmail/KNOWNBUGS.
	11
eac1e40b EA	12	This list is not guaranteed to be complete, especially for fixed bugs.
	13	Many bugs are reported and fixed without ever making it as far as this
	14	file. See the file RELEASE_NOTES (in the root directory of the sendmail
	15	distribution) for more details.
	16
	17
	18	+----------------------------------------------+
	19	\| THE FOLLOWING PROBLEMS ARE STILL OUTSTANDING \|
	20	+----------------------------------------------+
0ad2abd3	21
8cdd05dd EA	22
	23	* Null bytes are not handled properly.
	24
	25	Sendmail should handle full binary data. As it stands, it handles
	26	any value from 0x01-0xFF in the body and 0x01-0x80 and 0xA0-0xFF in
	27	the header. Notably missing is 0x00, which would require a major
	28	restructuring of the code -- for example, almost no C library support
	29	could be used to handle strings.
	30
d01e1b62 EA	31	* Duplicate error messages.
	32
	33	Sometimes identical, duplicate error messages can be generated. As
	34	near as I can tell, this is rare and relatively innocuous.
7f8ece85	35
823cb8d6 EA	36	* No "exposed users" in "nullrelay" configuration.
	37
	38	The "nullrelay" configuration hides all addresses behind the mail
	39	hub name. Some sites might prefer to expose some names such as
	40	root. This information is always available in Received: lines.
	41
2bf0c875 EA	42	* $c (hop count) macro improperly set.
	43
	44	The $c macro is supposed to contain the current hop count, for use
	45	when calling a mailer. This macro is initialized too early, and
	46	is always zero (or the value of the -c command line flag, if any).
	47	This macro will probably be removed entirely in a future release;
	48	I don't believe there are any mailers left that require it.
	49
7f8ece85 EA	50	* If you EXPN a list or user that has a program mailer, the output of
	51	EXPN will include ``@local.host.name''. You can't actually mail to
	52	this address. It's not clear what the right behaviour is in this
	53	circumstance.
	54
f09ef082 EA	55	* REDIRECT aliases don't work with `n' option.
	56
	57	If you have option `n' set when you use newaliases and have
	58	REDIRECT addresses in your aliases file, you'll get the error
	59	messages during the newaliases instead of when email is sent to
	60	the address in question. The workaround is to turn off the `n'
	61	option.
	62
f09ef082 EA	63	* MX records that point at non-existent hosts work strangly.
	64
	65	Consider the DNS records:
	66
	67	hostH MX 1 hostA
	68	MX 2 hostB
	69	hostA A 128.32.8.9
	70
	71	(note that there is no A record for hostB). If hostA is down,
	72	an attempt to send to hostH gives "host unknown" -- that is, it
	73	reflects out the status on the last host it tries, which in this
	74	case is hostB, which is unknown. It probably ought to eliminate
	75	hostB early in processing.
	76
	77	* NAME environment variables with commas break.
	78
	79	If you define your NAME environment variable to have a comma
	80	(e.g., ``Lastname, Firstname''), and you are using the $q definition
	81	that uses ``name <address>'' format, sendmail treats the first and
	82	last names as two addresses, thus producing a bogus From line. You
	83	can work around this by changing the $q definition to use
	84	``address (name)''.
	85
a497393f EA	86	* \231 considered harmful.
	87
	88	Header addresses that have the \231 character (and possibly others
	89	in the range \201 - \237) behave in odd and usually unexpected ways.
	90
a497393f EA	91	* DEC Alphas (OSF/1 1.3) sometimes time out on sending mail.
	92
	93	I have one report that DEC Alphas acting as SMTP clients sometimes
	94	will apparently not see the "250 OK" message in response to the
	95	dot that indicates the end of the message. This only happens if
	96	the message is run from the queue -- if it gets through on first
	97	try, everything is fine. I have been unable to reproduce this
	98	problem at Berkeley.
	99
	100	* accept() problem on SVR4.
	101
	102	Apparently, the sendmail daemon loop (doing accept()s on the network)
	103	can get into a wierd state on SVR4; it starts logging ``SYSERR:
	104	getrequests: accept: Protocol Error''. The workaround is to kill
	105	and restart the sendmail daemon. We don't have an SVR4 system at
	106	Berkeley that carries more than token mail load, so I can't validate
	107	this. It is likely to be a glitch in the sockets emulation, since
	108	"Protocol Error" is not possible error code with Berkeley TCP/IP.
	109
	110	I've also had someone report the message ``sendmail: accept:
	111	SIOCGPGRP failed errno 22'' on an SVR4 system. This message is
	112	not in the sendmail source code, so I assume it is also a bug
	113	in the sockets emulation. (Errno 22 is EINVAL "Invalid Argument"
	114	on all the systems I have available, including Solaris 2.x.)
	115
b1c2ea81 EA	116	* Sending user deletion not done properly in :include: lists.
	117
	118	If you don't have the "m" (me too) option set, then a person
	119	sending to a list that contains themselves should not get a copy
	120	of the message. However, if that list points to a :include: file
	121	that has one address per line, this will break, and the sender
	122	will always get a copy of their own message, just as though the
	123	"m" option were set.
	124
	125	You can eliminate this by adding commas at the end of each line
	126	of the :include: file.
	127
eac1e40b EA	128
	129	+-------------------------------------------+
	130	\| THE FOLLOWING PROBLEMS ARE FIXED IN 8.6.5 \|
	131	+-------------------------------------------+
	132
	133	* Route-addrs missing angle brackets.
	134
	135	There are cases where route-addrs do not get angle brackets around them,
	136	such as in the "-r" flag on mailers or in the From_ line created when
	137	mailing to files.
	138
	139	* No "exposed users" in "nullrelay" configuration.
	140
	141	The "nullrelay" configuration hides all addresses behind the mail
	142	hub name. Some sites might prefer to expose some names such as
	143	root. This information is always available in Received: lines.
	144
	145	* owner-* alias that uses :include: broken.
	146
	147	If you have aliases set up as:
	148
	149	owner-listname: :include:/some/file
	150
	151	sendmail will break because it considers this a "sender address",
	152	which is not permitted to use the :include: syntax. The easiest
	153	workaround is to change this to:
	154
	155	owner-listname: :include:/some/file,
	156
	157	(note the trailing comma); a somewhat cleaner solution is to use:
	158
	159	owner-listname: listname-request
	160	listname-request: :include:/some/file
	161
	162	* "SYSERR: openmailer(local): fd 1 not open" message
	163
	164	File descriptor 1 (standard output) should not be closed during normal
	165	processing. This is checked periodically, and sometimes this condition
	166	is found and this message is produced. Sendmail repairs the problem,
	167	and the mail is still delivered, but I still don't know why it happens.
	168	(There was a bug that was fixed in 8.6.beta.13 that might be related,
	169	but I think this bug still exists.)
	170
b1c2ea81	171	(Version 8.15, last updated %G%)