[cobalt-users] HELP, please - Email is broken (KINDA LONG)

[Charlie Summers <charlie@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Folks;

   Oookkk...I finally got some domains moved over to the RaQ3, and have hit a
_serious_ problem with email; apparently nothing is being lost at this point,
but it isn't being delivered properly, either. I thought at first the problem
was with catch-alls, but I've been able to replicate the problem using a test
account that has no aliases whatsoever. I've looked at virtusertable, and it
looks fine (goofy, but I didn't see any errors). aliases looks right, and
tests on a forwarding test user worked just peachie, so at least THAT'S ok...

   Since I honestly don't know what information the assemblage will need to
help me diagnose this problem, I'm going to be verbose and detail the simple
test I made that demonstrates the problem. (Yes, I searched the archives, but
couldn't find anything like this at all. If I find there's a FAQ that answers
this, I will publically apologize in my underwear - trust me, that will hurt
you more than it does me.  ;)

   Using the GUI, I created a new user on the "main" website named testuser.
After creation, I see in /var/spool/mail:

lrwxrwxrwx   1 testuser home           42 Jul 20 21:07 testuser ->
/home/sites/h
ome/../../spool/mail/testuser

   ...and in /home/spool/mail:

-rw-------   1 testuser home            0 Jul 20 21:07 testuser

   Ok, everything looks fine (or at least as "fine" as this goofy alias
system can look). Now I use pine as root to send a test email to
testuser@xxxxxxxxxx, and check /var/spool/mail again:

lrwxrwxrwx   1 testuser home           42 Jul 20 21:07 BOGUS.testuser.b3D ->
/ho
me/sites/home/../../spool/mail/testuser
-rw-------   1 testuser mail          514 Jul 20 21:09 testuser

   ...and in /home/spool/mail:

-rw-------   1 testuser home            0 Jul 20 21:07 testuser

   Ok...so sendmail is delivering to /var/spool/mail; first it "discovers"
that the testuser link isn't a valid mailbox, so (as it would with any other
corrupt mailbox) it renames it to BOGUS.testuser.xxx, blowing the link, then
writes to the "correct" /var/spool/mail/testuser file. Which is, of course,
fine, but then an su to testuser doesn't "see" the mail there' reporting that
there is no new mail. maillog (unfortunately munged below to foil the bad
guys) reports:

> Jul 20 21:09:17 www procmail[1130]: Renamed bogus
>"/var/spool/mail/testuser" into "/var/spool/mail/BOGUS.testuser.b3D"
> Jul 20 21:09:18 www sendmail[1129]: VAA01128: to=<testuser@xxxxxxxxxx>,
>ctladdr= <root@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (0/0), delay=00:00:17, xdelay=00:00:17,
>mailer=local, stat =Sent

   My initial thought is that if I create a _hard_ link between
/var/spool/mail/testuser and /home/spool/mail/testuser, things may work
correctly. But this falls under the heading of, "I'm afraid to do this
because it will void my warranty and Sun will take my first-born child, whom
I've grown to be rather fond of (pointers to pics of the redhead available on
request)."

   And for the record, this is happening to "real-world" mailboxes as well; I
even have one confirmed situation where /var/spool/mail/<username> contained
email, _and_ /home/spool/mail/<username> contained DIFFERENT email targeted
to one of the aliases for that username. This has me completely perplexed.

   I don't necessarily need to fix it this evening, and I am _not_ panicked
since the mail does seem to be storing, at least, but I MUST get the problems
resolved before the end of the weekend, since by then a bunch more domains
will be over on this server and there will be a LOT of mailboxes collecting
mail that no one can get ahold of - not to mention users actually trying to
_check_ their POP boxes.

   Any thoughts on this would be _greatly_ appreciated; also, if anyone is
completely familiar with the way the RaQ3s interface with sendmail and can
detail it, I'd _really_ appreciate a lesson which would also be great for the
archives. (See, I'm kinda used to having /var/spool/mail actually hold email,
not links. From the looks of things, so is sendmail.  ;)

         Charlie