problem with sendmail and su

[Derek Ragona]

At 05:44 AM 7/9/2008, Nicolas Letellier wrote:
>Hello.
>
>I use FreeBSD 7 with sendmail. I have a problem for sending email. More
>precisely, with the sender of the mail.
>When I'm logged to my machine in root, the mail is sent with
>"root at mymachine.com" with sender. OK, no problems.
>When I'm logged to my machine in nicolas, the mail is sent with
>"nicolas at mymachine.com" with sender. OK, no problems.
>
>However, when I'm logged in nicolas to my machine, and if I do a "su
>root" or "su - root", and I send a mail, the sender will be
>"nicolas at mymachine.com" and not "root at mymachine.com".
>
>It's a problem, because I done a "su" to be logged as root.
>
>I don't have this problem with a FreeBSD/Postfix.
>
>Thanks for your advices and helps. I don't understand this problem.
>
>Regards,
>
>--
>  - Nicolas.

That is exactly working as designed.  The reason sendmail sends the mail as 
your actual login user is so you cannot spoof so easily.  If you have 
certain emails like system reports you are sending and want them sent as 
root, add them to roots crontab file.

         -Derek

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