KNOWNBUGS revision 42575
11553Srgrimes 21553Srgrimes 31553Srgrimes K N O W N B U G S I N S E N D M A I L 41553Srgrimes (for 8.9.0) 51553Srgrimes 61553Srgrimes 71553SrgrimesThe following are bugs or deficiencies in sendmail that I am aware of 81553Srgrimesbut which have not been fixed in the current release. You probably 91553Srgrimeswant to get the most up to date version of this from ftp.sendmail.org 101553Srgrimesin /pub/sendmail/KNOWNBUGS. For descriptions of bugs that have been 111553Srgrimesfixed, see the file RELEASE_NOTES (in the root directory of the sendmail 121553Srgrimesdistribution). 13121300Sphk 141553SrgrimesThis list is not guaranteed to be complete. 151553Srgrimes 161553Srgrimes 171553Srgrimes* Null bytes are not handled properly in headers. 181553Srgrimes 191553Srgrimes Sendmail should handle full binary data. As it stands, it handles 201553Srgrimes all values in the body, but only 0x01-0x80 and 0xA0-0xFF in 211553Srgrimes the header. Notably missing is 0x00, which would require a major 221553Srgrimes restructuring of the code -- for example, almost no C library support 231553Srgrimes could be used to handle strings. 241553Srgrimes 251553Srgrimes* Duplicate error messages. 261553Srgrimes 271553Srgrimes Sometimes identical, duplicate error messages can be generated. As 281553Srgrimes near as I can tell, this is rare and relatively innocuous. 291553Srgrimes 30114601Sobrien* $c (hop count) macro improperly set. 311553Srgrimes 321553Srgrimes The $c macro is supposed to contain the current hop count, for use 33114601Sobrien when calling a mailer. This macro is initialized too early, and 3430027Scharnier is always zero (or the value of the -c command line flag, if any). 35114601Sobrien This macro will probably be removed entirely in a future release; 36114601Sobrien I don't believe there are any mailers left that require it. 371553Srgrimes 381553Srgrimes* If you EXPN a list or user that has a program mailer, the output of 391553Srgrimes EXPN will include ``@local.host.name''. You can't actually mail to 4030027Scharnier this address. It's not clear what the right behavior is in this 4130027Scharnier circumstance. 4230027Scharnier 431553Srgrimes* \231 considered harmful. 4430027Scharnier 451553Srgrimes Header addresses that have the \231 character (and possibly others 4630027Scharnier in the range \201 - \237) behave in odd and usually unexpected ways. 471553Srgrimes 4842561Sjkoshy* accept() problem on SVR4. 491553Srgrimes 501553Srgrimes Apparently, the sendmail daemon loop (doing accept()s on the network) 511553Srgrimes can get into a weird state on SVR4; it starts logging ``SYSERR: 521553Srgrimes getrequests: accept: Protocol Error''. The workaround is to kill 531553Srgrimes and restart the sendmail daemon. We don't have an SVR4 system at 5499800Salfred Berkeley that carries more than token mail load, so I can't validate 5599800Salfred this. It is likely to be a glitch in the sockets emulation, since 561553Srgrimes "Protocol Error" is not possible error code with Berkeley TCP/IP. 571553Srgrimes 58122135Sphk I've also had someone report the message ``sendmail: accept: 591553Srgrimes SIOCGPGRP failed errno 22'' on an SVR4 system. This message is 60121299Sphk not in the sendmail source code, so I assume it is also a bug 61121299Sphk in the sockets emulation. (Errno 22 is EINVAL "Invalid Argument" 621553Srgrimes on all the systems I have available, including Solaris 2.x.) 631553Srgrimes Apparently, this problem is due to linking -lc before -lsocket; 641553Srgrimes if you are having this problem, check your Makefile. 651553Srgrimes 662860Srgrimes* accept() problem on Linux. 671553Srgrimes 681553Srgrimes The accept() in sendmail daemon loop can return ETIMEDOUT. An 69122135Sphk error is reported to syslog: 701553Srgrimes 711553Srgrimes Jun 9 17:14:12 hostname sendmail[207]: NOQUEUE: SYSERR(root): 721553Srgrimes getrequests: accept: Connection timed out 731553Srgrimes 741553Srgrimes "Connection timed out" is not documented as a valid return from 751553Srgrimes accept(2) and this was believed to be a bug in the Linux kernel. 76229403Sed Later information from the Linux kernel group states that Linux 7730027Scharnier 2.0 kernels follow RFC1122 while sendmail follows the original BSD 781553Srgrimes (now POSIX 1003.1g draft) specification. The 2.1.X and later kernels 791553Srgrimes will follow the POSIX draft. 801553Srgrimes 811553Srgrimes* Excessive mailing list nesting can run out of file descriptors. 821553Srgrimes 831553Srgrimes If you have a mailing list that includes lots of other mailing 841553Srgrimes lists, each of which has a separate owner, you can run out of 851553Srgrimes file descriptors. Each mailing list with a separate owner uses 861553Srgrimes one open file descriptor (prior to 8.6.6 it was three open 871553Srgrimes file descriptors per list). This is particularly egregious if 881553Srgrimes you have your connection cache set to be large. 891553Srgrimes 901553Srgrimes* Connection caching breaks if you pass the port number as an argument. 911553Srgrimes 921553Srgrimes If you have a definition such as: 931553Srgrimes 941553Srgrimes Mport, P=[IPC], F=kmDFMuX, S=11/31, R=21, 951553Srgrimes M=2100000, T=DNS/RFC822/SMTP, 961553Srgrimes A=IPC [127.0.0.1] $h 971553Srgrimes 981553Srgrimes (i.e., where $h is the port number instead of the host name) the 991553Srgrimes connection caching code will break because it won't notice that 1001553Srgrimes two messages addressed to different ports should use different 1011553Srgrimes connections. 1028857Srgrimes 1031553Srgrimes* ESMTP SIZE underestimates the size of a message 1041553Srgrimes 10530027Scharnier Sendmail makes no allowance for headers that it adds, nor does it 1061553Srgrimes account for the SMTP on-the-wire \r\n expansion. It probably doesn't 1071553Srgrimes allow for 8->7 bit MIME conversions either. 1081553Srgrimes 1091553Srgrimes* Paths to programs being executed and the mode of program files are 1101553Srgrimes not checked. Essentially, the RunProgramInUnsafeDirPath and 1111553Srgrimes RunWritableProgram bits in the DontBlameSendmail option are always 1121553Srgrimes set. This is not a problem if your system is well managed (that is, 1131553Srgrimes if binaries and system directories are mode 755 instead of something 1141553Srgrimes foolish like 777). 1151553Srgrimes 1161553Srgrimes* 8-bit data in GECOS field 1171553Srgrimes 1181553Srgrimes If the GECOS (personal name) information in the passwd file contains 1191553Srgrimes 8-bit characters, those characters can be included in the message 1201553Srgrimes header, which can cause problems when sending SMTP to hosts that 121229403Sed only accept 7-bit characters. 12230027Scharnier 12330027Scharnier* 8->7 bit MIME conversion 1241553Srgrimes 1251553Srgrimes When sendmail is doing 8->7 bit MIME conversions, and the message 1261553Srgrimes contains certain MIME body types that cannot be converted to 7-bit, 1271553Srgrimes sendmail will strip the message to 7-bit. 1281553Srgrimes 1291553Srgrimes* 7->8 bit MIME conversion 1301553Srgrimes 1311553Srgrimes If a message that is encoded as 7-bit MIME is converted to 8-bit and 1321553Srgrimes that message when decoded is illegal (e.g., because of long lines or 1331553Srgrimes illegal characters), sendmail can produce an illegal message. 1341553Srgrimes 1351553Srgrimes* MIME encoded full name phrases in the From: header 1361553Srgrimes 13730027Scharnier If a full name phrase includes characters from MustQuoteChars, sendmail 1381553Srgrimes will quote the entire full name phrase. If MustQuoteChars includes 1391553Srgrimes characters which are not special characters according to STD 11 (RFC 1401553Srgrimes 822), this quotation can interfere with MIME encoded full name phrases. 14130027Scharnier By default, sendmail includes the single quote character (') in 1421553Srgrimes MustQuoteChars even though it is not listed as a special character in 1431553Srgrimes STD 11. 1441553Srgrimes 1451553Srgrimes* bestmx map with -z flag truncates the list of MX hosts 146121734Sphk 147121734Sphk A bestmx map configured with the -z flag will truncate the list 1481553Srgrimes of MX hosts. This prevents creation of strings which are too 1491553Srgrimes long for ruleset parsing. This can have an adverse effect on the 1501553Srgrimes relay_based_on_MX feature. 1511553Srgrimes 1521553Srgrimes 1531553Srgrimes(Version 8.34, last updated 12/17/1998) 1541553Srgrimes