From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 5 10:10:34 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 528AC37B401 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2003 10:10:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pursued-with.net (adsl-66-125-9-242.dsl.sndg02.pacbell.net [66.125.9.242]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D90443F85 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2003 10:10:33 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Kevin_Stevens@pursued-with.net) Received: from babelfish.pursued-with.net (babelfish.pursued-with.net [192.168.168.42]) by pursued-with.net (8.12.8p1/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h75HBvqZ040979 for ; Tue, 5 Aug 2003 10:11:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Kevin_Stevens@pursued-with.net) Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 10:11:57 -0700 (PDT) From: Kevin Stevens To: FreeBSD Questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20030805095446.F40922@babelfish.pursued-with.net> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: Another FreeBSD/sendmail permissions question X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: Kevin_Stevens@pursued-with.net List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 17:10:34 -0000 Not sure where this goes; I'm also posting it to the sendmail Usenet group. I've been having what is apparently a fairly common problem with my sendmail configuration; every time a message is delivered I get a warning of the type "Aug 5 00:25:53 babelfish sendmail[39666]: h757PrRD039666: forward /data/mail/.forward+: Group writable directory". After doing some research, I've been able to turn off the warning messages using the DontBlameSendmail option in my .cf file. However, I'd really like to understand why the warning is being generated in the first place. /data/mail is the user directory to which mail is delivered by my IMAP server after it is moved from /var/mail/imap. a) There is no .forward file in /data/mail b) The permissions on the /data/mail directory are: drwx------ 4 imap wheel 512 Aug 5 10:00 . c) The permissions on the *parent* (/data) directory are: drwxrwxr-x 18 root staff 512 Aug 2 13:52 .. d) Permissions on /var/mail/USERNAME are: -rw------- 1 imap imap 0 Aug 5 10:03 imap e) Permissions on /var/mail are: drwxrwxr-x 2 root mail 512 Aug 5 10:02 . f) And on /var are: drwxr-xr-x 23 root wheel 512 May 10 23:23 . Now, what's confusing to me is that if I remove the group writable attribute of /data, the messages go away. WTF? Why does sendmail care about the permissions of the *parent* directory? Is this because someone in the parent could alter or blow away the /data/mail directory? I'd think that, if anything, the problem would be the permissions on the /var/mail directory; but not only is that not where the warning references; tightening permissions in that area doesn't affect the warnings. KeS