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Weird sendmail problem
Hello,
I've hit a most puzzling problem, to which I hope someone can
offer a reasonable explanation.
Background: Linux kernel 2.0.30, Slackware (not the latest dist).
sendmail 8.8.8. Pentium-Pro.
Problem manifested itself by e-mail being delivered many times,
in a loop. Checking revealed that sendmail sends some mail, then
crashes, then restarts (child process), then repeats.
To make a long story short, the problem turned out to be the sendmail
binary. When comparing it to the binary in the source tree, I found
that one bit (exactly) was flipped. 'EF' in the original became 'FF'.
This is weird and scary; however it's not the whole story. The funniest
thing is, that this is happening a second time (last time was 5 months
ago). The problem was the same, the solution the same; it was a different
sendmail version (!), and at that time, too, 'EF' changed into 'FF'.
To me, this looks more like a software glitch than a hardware malfunction.
However I'm pretty much at loss as to the possible explanation of this
error.
Can anyone offer a clue?
Thank you in advance,
Doron Shikmoni