Why does m4 error "linux-gnu.m4 - No such file or directory" appear the first time after updating sendmail.mc?

Question

SendMail 8.14.x | CentOS 5.x

I've noticed that if I manually update /etc/mail/sendmail.mc (for example, enable TLS support), and then bounce sendmail, I get the following error:

Shutting down sm-client:                [   OK   ]
Shutting down sendmail:                 [   OK   ]
Starting sendmail: sendmail.mc:18: m4: cannot open `/usr/share/sendmail-cf/ostype/linux-gnu.mf': No such file or directory
                                        [   OK   ]
Starting sm-client:                     [   OK   ]

This only happens one time after I update a sendmail.mc file. If I bounce sendmail again (without making any other change), I don't see the error any more.

Any idea why this happens? It doesn't cause any errors - I'm just curious.

Answer 1

sendmail.mc errors after upgrade

sendmail.mc:18: m4: cannot open `/usr/share/sendmail-cf/ostype/linux-gnu.m4': No such file or directory

Your sendmail.mc file is buggy. It contains OSTYPE(linux-gnu) directive without support for linux-gnu parameter for OSTYPE. You get the above error message when sendmail package regenerates/recompiles sendmail.mc into sendmail.cf after upgrade.

Suggested fixes :
comment out OSTYPE line (dnl ...)
[Your sendmail works without it anyway as I understand]
OR
change OSTYPE parameter to value used in default sendmail.mc provided by sendmail packages in your distribution (centos?). It MAY cause unwanted/unexpected effects.