probable sendmail bug: sendmail -t < msg - bad file number

[Heinz Naef]

Probable sendmail bug on SunOS 4.0.3

On our diskless clients we have the following sendmail configuration file
(/etc/sendmail.cf):

   OR<fileservername>
   Mlocal,	P=/bin/mail, F=rlsDFMmnP, S=10, R=20, A=mail -d $u
   Mprog,	P=/bin/sh,   F=lsDFMeuP,  S=10, R=20, A=sh -c $u

   where <fileservername> is the hostname of the file server associated with
   the client.

Some program, e. g. Pnews, Rnmail and some rn-internal functions, invoke
sendmail to inspect the message header for To:-, Cc:- and Bcc:-header
lines and inject the message in the network for the requested recepients.
This is done by invoking sendmail as follows

   /usr/lib/sendmail -t < <message-with-header>

where <message-with-header> is the complete electronic message including
the RFC 822 (and RFC 1036) header as prepared by one of the above user
interface programs.

If this command is issued on a diskless client which has the above
sendmail configuration file, it will fail with the following message:

   cannot chdir((null)): Bad file number

Any idea what could be wrong?

Heinz Naef, c/o CIBA-GEIGY AG, R-1045.3.37, P.O.Box, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland
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