Strange permission issue on Linux server.

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Starting

sendmail

throws this error:

I decided to see the permission on the files under /etc/mail and this is the output:

[root@techx mail]# ls -ltr
total 284
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  1847 Jan 27  2014 virtusertable
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   127 Jan 27  2014 trusted-users
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root    92 Jan 27  2014 Makefile
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  2700 Jan 27  2014 make
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   997 Jan 27  2014 mailertable
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   233 Jan 27  2014 domaintable
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   724 Sep 12 18:13 access
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 12288 Sep 12 18:13 access.db
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  1041 Jun  9  2014 submit.mc
.....
.....

On my dev server development_techx this works perfectly fine so i decided to compare the permission of the dev which shows

[root@development_techx mail]# ls -ltr
total 440
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  1847 Jan 27  2014 virtusertable
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   127 Jan 27  2014 trusted-users
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    92 Jan 27  2014 Makefile
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  2700 Jan 27  2014 make
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   997 Jan 27  2014 mailertable
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    64 Jan 27  2014 local-host-names
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   724 Sep 12 18:13 access
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12288 Sep 12 18:13 access.db
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  1041 Jun  9  2014 submit.mc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 41680 Jun  9  2014 submit.cf
.....
.....

Do you see the difference ?

The problem with techx server is all the files have permission which hows a (.) a (dot) at the end of the permissions when you fire the ls -ltr command which we do not see on development_techx as you can see below.

wrong vs right

-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 724 Sep 12 18:13 access vs -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 724 Sep 12 18:13 access

I had used chmod -R 755 /etc/mail command for changing permission on both the servers.

So why do i see the difference or the (.) in the end and how can i resolve this difference ?

2

I think it complains about the files having the x-bits.
Please correct them with

find /etc/mail -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Regarding the . there might be a different ls alias defined in the shell; try \ls . Actually the dot means an ACL; list them with getfacl .

3

I frankly did not understand what solution you are proposing to make the techx look same as development_techx

[root@techx ~]# find /etc/mail -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
[root@techx ~]# cd /etc/mail
[root@techx mail]# ls -ltr
total 284
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  1847 Jan 27  2014 virtusertable
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   127 Jan 27  2014 trusted-users
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root    92 Jan 27  2014 Makefile
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  2700 Jan 27  2014 make
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   997 Jan 27  2014 mailertable
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   233 Jan 27  2014 domaintable
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root  1041 Jun  9  2014 submit.mc
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 12288 Aug 25 19:16 access.db
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root   641 Sep 17 06:55 access
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 41680 Jun  9  2014 submit.cf
.....
.....

\ls
access           auth         domaintable.db  list_prod.txt                  mailertable     Makefile         sendmail.mc      submit.cf      virtusertable
access.db        cert         helpfile        local-host-names 

[root@techx mail]# getfacl *
# file: access
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

# file: access.db
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

# file: aliasesdb-stamp
# owner: root
# group: root
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

# file: auth

Starting the sendmail fails with the below error.

service sendmail start
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl start  sendmail.service
Job for sendmail.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status sendmail.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
[root@digiklug mail]# systemctl status sendmail.service
 sendmail.service - Sendmail Mail Transport Agent
.....
.....
Sep 17 09:12:46 digiklug systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Sendmail Mail Transport Client.
-- Subject: Unit sm-client.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
--
-- Unit sm-client.service has failed.
--
-- The result is dependency.
Sep 17 09:12:46 techx systemd[1]: Job sm-client.service/start failed with result 'dependency'.
Sep 17 09:12:46 techx systemd[1]: Unit sendmail.service entered failed state.
Sep 17 09:12:46 techx systemd[1]: sendmail.service failed.
Sep 17 09:12:46 techx polkitd[496]: Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-process:31731:176847639 (system bus name :1.10322, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/
Sep 17 09:12:50 techx unix_chkpwd[31764]: password check failed for user (root)
Sep 17 09:12:50 techx sshd[31760]: pam_unix(sshd:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=ssh ruser= rhost=58.242.83.21  user=root
Sep 17 09:12:50 techx sshd[31760]: pam_succeed_if(sshd:auth): requirement "uid >= 1000" not met by user "root"
Sep 17 09:12:52 techx sshd[31760]: Failed password for root from 58.242.83.21 port 32150 ssh2
Sep 17 09:12:53 techx unix_chkpwd[31765]: password check failed for user (root)

With the above output how to i fix the problem of making techx look same as development_techx ??

4

I have posted chmod 644 .
How comes you quote me wrongly?
I wanted you to escape an eventual alias, with your options becomes

\ls -ltr

Your getfacl says rw- for user and r-- for group and other, that is correct, but then the ls should show -rw-r--r-- .