From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Nov 7 07:53:39 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id HAA06152 for questions-outgoing; Fri, 7 Nov 1997 07:53:39 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from horton.iaces.com (horton.iaces.com [204.147.87.98]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA06145 for ; Fri, 7 Nov 1997 07:53:33 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from proot@horton.iaces.com) Received: (from proot@localhost) by horton.iaces.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA07625; Fri, 7 Nov 1997 09:52:32 -0600 (CST) From: "Paul T. Root" Message-Id: <199711071552.JAA07625@horton.iaces.com> Subject: Re: Sending mail while PPP is up To: crtb@capecod.net (Chuck) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 09:52:31 -0600 (CST) Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG, crtb@capecod.net In-Reply-To: <199711062009.PAA01228@capecod.net> from Chuck at "Nov 6, 97 03:09:29 pm" X-Organization: !nterprise Networking Services - ACES X-Phone: (612) 664-3385 X-Fax: (612) 664-4779 X-Page: (800) SKY-PAGE PIN: 537-7270 X-Address: 600 Stinson Blvd, Fl 1S X-Address: Minneapolis, MN 55413 X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL22 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk In a previous message, Chuck said: > On my modem-bound FreeBSD-2.2.2R system, a cron job running every two > hours brings up a PPP session, and fetches mail via POP from my ISP. > > I read and respond to that mail at an irregular schedule, so that > often when I send mail, the PPP link is down. I sometimes get the > message "Cannot send mail for five days", and wonder frequently if > the mail ever got sent. > > The question: is there a signal or some other way I can communicate > with sendmail which will cause it to attempt to send immediately? > If so, I can put the appropriate kill command in the script which > fetches mail. There are several things that you can do with sendmail. The first is have the sendmail daemon queue frequently, ie. more often than the timeout period of your ppp. The second is the option - DialDelay (first came in 8.7). This allows you to wait for the ppp link to come up before it attempts to send stuff out. That way, when sendmail tries to send out, and ppp starts up, it will wait for a given time period before it starts trying. The third is ETRN directive. This comes in on port 25 and makes sendmail immediately process the queue to the given machine. So when ppp comes up, you'd run a script something like this: #!/bin/sh telnet localhost 25 <