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I'm going through the process of updating Sendmail for some alerting. I.E. something happens, sendmail sends us the email of the error, we fix it.

We're running into issues where those emails aren't sending anymore and were looking to update Sendmail. We're currently on 8.15 and looking to upgrade to the latest 8.18. In the documentation we've seen the following steps (For reference):

  1. Read all the README files noted in the INTRODUCTION section of the README file in this top-level directory.

  2. Create any necessary site configuration build files, as noted in devtools/Site/README.

  3. In the sendmail/ directory, run "sh ./Build" (see sendmail/README for details).

  4. Change to the cf/cf/ directory (that's not a typo): Copy whichever .mc file best matches your environment to sendmail.mc. Next, tailor it as explained in cf/README. Then run "sh ./Build sendmail.cf".

  5. Back up your current /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and the sendmail binary (whose location varies from operating system to operating system, but is usually in /usr/sbin or /usr/lib).

  6. Install sendmail.cf as /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and submit.cf as /etc/mail/submit.cf. This can be done in the cf/cf by using "sh ./Build install-cf".

Please read sendmail/SECURITY before continuing; you may have to create a new user smmsp and a new group smmsp for the default installation if you are updating from a really old version. Then install the sendmail binary built in step 3 by cd-ing back to sendmail/ and running "sh ./Build install".

  1. For each of the associated sendmail utilities (makemap, mailstats, etc.), read the README in the utility's directory if it exists. When you are ready to install it, back up your installed version and type "sh ./Build install".

  2. If you are upgrading from an older version of sendmail and are using any database maps, be sure to rebuild them with the new version of makemap, in case you are now using a different (and thereby incompatible) version of Berkeley DB.

I've managed to get through steps 1-5 without issue, but we're running into the following errors for step 6:

Using M4=/usr/bin/m4 ../../devtools/bin/install.sh -c -o root -g bin -m 0444 sendmail.cf /etc/mail/sendmail.cf make: execvp: ../../devtools/bin/install.sh: Permission denied make: *** [Makefile:83: install-sendmail-cf] Error 127

I've looked at the permissions for the install.sh file and it's currently 755 with 2004 2004 ownership

Unfortunately, this is far over my head. Any help would be appreciated.

Attempted to follow the steps provided, but ran into some make errors. Checked permissions. Hit brick wall.

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  • Why you do not use yum update? Commented Feb 12 at 14:59
  • There's no updated version in the repo that I know of. yum update sendmail would just always return with nothing to do Commented Feb 12 at 16:01
  • And are you sure the "new" version you install from source will do something old version do not? Commented Feb 12 at 16:40
  • While this is not the answer you are looking for, it does not sound like Sendmail is a good fit for your environment. I'm not dissing Sendmail - it is still a very VERY sophisticated and high performance MTA but demands a VERY high level of experise to operate. Upgrading the version seems an unlikely solution for the problem, and the first steps in addressing the error reported here should be obvious. Commented Feb 13 at 10:36

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you are missing executables or they are not in your $PATH! Make error 127 is: Error 127 - file not found: the path you're using is incorrect. double check that the program is actually in your $PATH, and the relative path is correct

Double check that you have make, m4, a compiler that works, not just the broken alias.

Just from experience with Sendmail 8.x in the past ... create a new sendmail.mc with the features you need, then let it properly generate sendmail.cf. You should always modify the .mc file and have sendmail generate a correct .cf file.

Please for the LUV of all things cute & cuddly, move your backup steps up to step 1, or earlier. I've seen too many people completely WRECK mail because they did not do backups first.

Make sure you can put everything back the way it was before you started jacking around!!!

I really like Sendmail! It's leaps and bound the most capable MTA. Just about everyone is using Postfix now. It's super easy to configure correctly.

Also, perhaps try this, and perfect your process on a machine that is NOT production? Just to make sure you don't harm the current-known-working Sendmail installation and configuration. Once you have your process nailed down and have tested successfully, you can do this everywhere needed.

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  • Have no fear! We made sure to backup every single file we were touching before we ever made any changes. And we're lucky enough to have this being done in a Non-Prod environment as well. Thanks for all the pointers, we're going to continue messing around a bit with it. Romeo above made a good point also, we were chasing this as a fix since mail stopped sending when a function was being called from an assembly. The errorMail we're sending gets created just fine, but the script to send the mail off never fires, so I think we need to pursue troubleshooting that first! Commented Feb 12 at 19:50

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