Re: mail: Sending...failed with exit value 71

[gebser@speakeasy.net]

At 19:45 (UTC-0000) on Mon, 8 Dec 2003 Glenn Morris 
said:

= gebser@speakeasy.net wrote:
= 
= > So, it must be that there's some other configuration item in emacs
= > which is bombing when it tries to send the mail.
= 
= Alright then, the crystal ball says:
= 
= You have a sendmail installation where the sendmail executable (eg
= /usr/sbin/sendmail) is not suid root. Either make it so (chmod u+s
= /usr/sbin/sendmail), or if you can't/don't want to do that, try

I've already got that... and have had it.  It was set up that way from
the original install/upgrade.  As said, since mail works fine in 'pine',
'xemacs', 'mozilla', and 'mail' (that very basic email app which hardly
anyone uses anymore), and fails only when using emacs, sendmail wouldn't
seem to be the place to look for the problem, yes?

Moreover, for simplicity's sake, I'd rather that emacs not even go to my
local sendmail to send mail.  Emacs can connect up to the (remotely
located) mailserver all by itself, yes?

However, this method can really slow down the user interface (because 
elisp can't fork it off... put that at the top of my wishlist).  So this 
would be a reason for countermanding the simplicity principle (above).

However, using my local sendmail sends out my email with a line in the
header saying it's from this host's domain (mousecar) and some email
systems (e.g., AOL's) don't like that and bounce my email to them back
at me.  So I go back to the simplicity principle (i.e., avoid using
sendmail if possible).

Judging from the sendmail error cited in earlier posts, it's apparent 
that emacs is using sendmail.  Though you couldn't tell from the 
aforementioned, I'd rather that emacs didn't do this.  So which 
variable(s) control this?

= 
= (setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it  ; for Gnus
=       send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it          ; for other things
=       smtpmail-debug-info t    ; only while you sort out this issue
=       smtpmail-smtp-server "your.mail.server")

Here's what I've had in my .emacs (irrelevant customizations edited 
out):

(custom-set-variables
 '(mail-default-reply-to "gebser@speakeasy.net")
 '(mail-host-address "speakeasy.net")
 '(smtp-default-server "mail.speakeasy.net")
 '(message-send-mail-function (quote smtpmail-send-it))
 '(mail-send-nonascii nil)
 '(smtp-server "mail.speakeasy.net")
 '(user-mail-address "gebser@speakeasy.net")
 '(gnus-secondary-servers (quote ("news.chi.sbcglobal.net")))
 '(smtp-fqdn "mousecar.net")
 '(smtpmail-queue-mail t)
 '(user-full-name "ken")
 '(mail-interactive t)
 '(gnus-nntp-server "news.cle.sbcglobal.net"))

In addition, there's this item in Customize:

----------------------------------------------
Smtpmail Queue Dir: [Hide] ~/Mail/queued-mail/
   [State]: this option is unchanged from its standard setting.
Directory where `smtpmail.el' stores queued mail.
----------------------------------------------

Though I haven't found it documented anywhere, I'm guessing that this is 
the directory used when emacs does it's *own* queuing, i.e., *not* using 
sendmail.  Anyone care to confirm this?

This specified directory is there:

$ ls -ld ~/Mail/queued-mail/
drwxrwxr-x    2 ken  ken    4096 Dec 12  2002 /home/ken/Mail/queued-mail/

but it's empty

So, how's everything look?


Thanks again for the response.

ken