# Sendmail is not running



## vienuolis (Sep 11, 2022)

Sorry for the possibly silly question: why Sendmail stopped working as a service daemon — is that mode of operation OK?

Sendmail (MTA) with Cyrus (MDA) both continue to serve email properly, at least I don't notice any glitches nor warnings in the maillog. Apart from the frustrating answer while reloading Sendmail:


```
# service sendmail status
sendmail is not running.
sendmail_msp_queue is running as pid 77313.
# service sendmail start
Starting sendmail.
sendmail_msp_queue already running?  (pid=77313).
# service sendmail status
sendmail is not running.
sendmail_msp_queue is running as pid 77313.
# service sendmail stop
sendmail not running? (check /var/run/sendmail.pid).
Stopping sendmail_msp_queue.
Waiting for PIDS: 77313.
# service sendmail status
sendmail is not running.
sendmail_msp_queue is not running.
# service sendmail start
Starting sendmail.
Starting sendmail_msp_queue.
# service sendmail status
sendmail is not running.
sendmail_msp_queue is running as pid 89087.
# make start-mta
Starting: sendmail.
# service sendmail status
sendmail is not running.
sendmail_msp_queue is running as pid 89087.
# ps ax | grep sendmail
81435  -  Ss  3:52.13 sendmail: accepting connections (sendmail)
98536  -  Is  0:00.49 sendmail: Queue runner@00:30:00 for /var/spool/clientmqueue (sendmail)
99121  1  S+  0:00.00 grep sendmail
```

I remember when, but I have no idea why Sendmail changed its behavior — there were no major changes then.  Unless an upgrade of Sendmail from 8.16.1 to 8.17.1 earlier could have been the cause.  Although the configuration remained the same, e. g. in /etc/rc.conf


```
sendmail_enable="YES"
# sendmail_submit_enable="NO"
# sendmail_outbound_enable="NO"
# sendmail_msp_queue_enable="YES"
sendmail_cert_create="YES"
sendmail_cert_cn="sala.online.lt"
saslauthd_enable="YES"
cyrus_imapd_enable="YES"
spfmilter_enable="YES"
milteropendkim_enable="YES"
opendmarc_enable="YES"
milterbogom_enable="YES"
obspamd_enable="YES"
obspamlogd_enable="YES"
```

I am also surprised to see only sm-mta instead of previous sm-msp in /var/log/maillog. Sorry, I do not have postmaster's experience yet.


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