i386/139870: existing sendmail aliases ignored until sendmail restart

[Warren Block]

>Number:         139870
>Category:       i386
>Synopsis:       existing sendmail aliases ignored until sendmail restart
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    freebsd-i386
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Fri Oct 23 20:30:04 UTC 2009
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Warren Block
>Release:        8.0-RC1
>Organization:
>Environment:
FreeBSD lightning 8.0-RC1 FreeBSD 8.0-RC1 #11: Thu Oct 22 13:03:43 MDT 2009     root at lightning:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/LIGHTNING  i386
>Description:
On this system, /etc/mail/aliases has an entry to send root email to another user on another computer.  newaliases was last run on October 14:

-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   1693 Oct 14 07:18 aliases
-rw-r-----  1 root  wheel  16384 Oct 14 07:18 aliases.db

That was from an earlier version of 8.0-RC1.

After booting, the root alias in the already-built alias files is ignored by sendmail.  The mail is sent to the un-aliased root.

The existing .mc file does take effect (in this case, mail is still sent to a smarthost, where it bounces, since root at lightning.wonkity.com doesn't exist there).

A 'make restart' of sendmail--without touching anything else--and the 
alias works.

FreeBSD lightning 8.0-RC1 FreeBSD 8.0-RC1 #11: Thu Oct 22 13:03:43 MDT 
2009     root at lightning:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/LIGHTNING  i386

This has been going on for a while; at least the last half-dozen 
rebuilds of 8.0-RC1 on this system have exhibited the problem.  It's a 
regression from 7-STABLE.

>How-To-Repeat:
Enter an alias in /etc/aliases (only root tested).
newaliases
Reboot.
Send mail to that alias (failure).
cd /etc/mail; make restart
Send mail to that alias (success).
>Fix:


>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: