root not getting system email

[greg at grokking.org]

Denny White wrote:
> 
> 
> Can someone please help me with this.
> I read where it's safer to have an
> admin read root's mail than for the
> root user himself. So, I did the
> /etc/aliases & newaliases thing, I
> tried the aliase in /etc/mail & did
> a "make" there & a make restart,
> tried a .forward file in roots home
> directory, tried the virtusertable
> & local-host-names & mailertable in
> /etc/mail, & so far nothing but trouble.
> Here's the type of messages I'm getting
> when the system fails to relay roots
> mail:
> 
> May 28 15:02:07 dualman sm-mta[2278]: j4SK270A002278:
> Losing ./qfj4SK270A002278: savemail panic
> May 28 15:02:06 dualman sm-mta[2277]: j4SK250A002277:
> SYSERR(root): rewrite: excessive recursion (max 50),
> ruleset canonify
> May 28 15:02:07 dualman sm-mta[2278]: j4SK270A002278:
> SYSERR(root): savemail: cannot save rejected email anywhere
> 
> It also says the local user cannot be found,
> which I think is my screwup for whatever way
> I entered the user in aliases and virtusertable.
> Would it be wiser just to undo everything, and
> just try using the .forward file for root?
> Trying to get everything on here working right
> so I can teach myself how to do a cvsup & learn
> to rebuild & merge everything, but this is for
> sure holding me back. Thanks for any help I can
> get.
> 


It's obvious your sendmail config is messed up. The easiest fix would be
to undo EXACTLY what you changed from the default install until you can
learn enough about sendmail to know the full implications of your
alterations.

All you should need to do to get system mail delivered to any other user
is add email address (or valid user account name) to the root entry of
/etc/mail/aliases, then run `newaliases`. As long as DNS is working
properly you should be fine.

If you can't get back to a fresh install, start by giving us some more
information: /etc/mail/aliases and your *.mc file would be nice for
starters.

G