After upgrade to F42, mutt + postfix no longer able to send email

[Ranjan Maitra]

Hi,

After an upgrade to F42, I am no longer able to send email. When I press "send on mutt" after composing, I get

Error sending message, child exited 127 (Exec error.).

Any suggestions on what the error could be?

Many thanks and best wishes,
Ranjan

[Ranjan Maitra]

On Wed Jun11'25 06:51:03PM, Community Support for Fedora Users wrote:
> From: Ranjan Maitra via users 
> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 18:51:03 -0500
> To: Community Support for Fedora Users 
> Cc: Ranjan Maitra 
> Reply-To: Community support for Fedora users 
> Subject: After upgrade to F42, mutt + postfix no longer able to send email
>
> Hi,
>
> After an upgrade to F42, I am no longer able to send email. When I press "send on mutt" after composing, I get
>
> Error sending message, child exited 127 (Exec error.).
>
> Any suggestions on what the error could be?

I wanted to add that I upgraded using dnf system-upgrade plugin.

My /etc/postfix/main.cf is carried over from F41 (and before).

Many thanks and best wishes,
Ranjan

[Todd Zullinger]

Ranjan Maitra via users wrote:
> > After an upgrade to F42, I am no longer able to send
> > email. When I press "send on mutt" after composing, I get
> >
> > Error sending message, child exited 127 (Exec error.).
> >
> > Any suggestions on what the error could be?
>
> I wanted to add that I upgraded using dnf system-upgrade
> plugin.
>
> My /etc/postfix/main.cf is carried over from F41 (and
> before).

There were issues for many folks with the merge of bin and
sbin.  The result is that binaries aren't found as they
should be.

Mutt's default for $sendmail uses /usr/sbin/sendmail.  You
can check the value in your mutt, via `:set ?sendmail` and
then verify the path exists.  It is likely a symlink to
/etc/alternatives/mta which is then a symlink to something
like /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix.

I just installed postfix and mutt in a Fedorda 42 container
and mutt reports: sendmail="usr/bin/sendmail -oem -oi" which
seems to be entirely broken.  You may have to set that
manually in your muttrc in addition to fixing the symlinks
to the sendmail binary, if they're broken.

I don't see that anywhere in the "Common Issues" section of
the forum, but I know there were multiple posts here and on
the devel list about it.  It's hard to understand why it's
not there, as there were more than a few issues related to
the bin/sbin merge.

[Todd Zullinger]

I wrote:
> Mutt's default for $sendmail uses /usr/sbin/sendmail.  You
> can check the value in your mutt, via `:set ?sendmail` and
> then verify the path exists.  It is likely a symlink to
> /etc/alternatives/mta which is then a symlink to something
> like /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix.
>
> I just installed postfix and mutt in a Fedorda 42 container
> and mutt reports: sendmail="usr/bin/sendmail -oem -oi" which
> seems to be entirely broken.  You may have to set that
> manually in your muttrc in addition to fixing the symlinks
> to the sendmail binary, if they're broken.

FWIW, https://bugzilla.redhat.com/2356981 is one of two open
bugs for mutt, so as is often the case, checking bugzilla
first is a good plan.

I had looked at the spec file for mutt and ran mutt -v and
SENDMAIL points to /usr/bin/sendmail, so it's unclear
whether the reported setting from ":set ?sendmail" is buggy
output or is the leading / is actually missing somehow.

I'd first ensure that the sendmail symlinks point to postfix
as they should and then try to send mail before getting too
lost in any mutt config settings.

[Ranjan Maitra]

Hi Todd,

Thanks very  much for this!

On Wed Jun11'25 09:09:52PM, Todd Zullinger wrote:
> From: Todd Zullinger 
> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 21:09:52 -0400
> To: [e-mail]
> Reply-To: Community support for Fedora users 
> Subject: Re: After upgrade to F42, mutt + postfix no longer able to send
>  email
>
> Ranjan Maitra via users wrote:
> > > After an upgrade to F42, I am no longer able to send
> > > email. When I press "send on mutt" after composing, I get
> > >
> > > Error sending message, child exited 127 (Exec error.).
> > >
> > > Any suggestions on what the error could be?
> >
> > I wanted to add that I upgraded using dnf system-upgrade
> > plugin.
> >
> > My /etc/postfix/main.cf is carried over from F41 (and
> > before).
>
> There were issues for many folks with the merge of bin and
> sbin.  The result is that binaries aren't found as they
> should be.
>
> Mutt's default for $sendmail uses /usr/sbin/sendmail.  You
> can check the value in your mutt, via `:set ?sendmail` and
> then verify the path exists.  It is likely a symlink to
> /etc/alternatives/mta which is then a symlink to something
> like /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix.
>
> I just installed postfix and mutt in a Fedorda 42 container
> and mutt reports: sendmail="usr/bin/sendmail -oem -oi" which
> seems to be entirely broken.  You may have to set that
> manually in your muttrc in addition to fixing the symlinks
> to the sendmail binary, if they're broken.

So, for me, on the F41 machine which does not report an issue, I get:

$ ll /etc/alternatives/mta-sendmail
 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 25 Apr 26 14:25 /etc/alternatives/mta-sendmail -> /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix*

$ ll /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix
 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 24 Jul 24  2024 /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix -> ../sbin/sendmail.postfix*

On the F42 machine, where I get that error, I have

$ ll /etc/alternatives/mta-sendmail 
 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 25 Feb  6  2023 /etc/alternatives/mta-sendmail -> /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix*

$ ll /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix*
 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 May  8 19:00 /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*

So, sbin to bin.

Interestingly, the F42 machine has:
 $ locate sendmail.postfix
 /usr/bin/sendmail.postfix
 /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix
 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix

with the /usr/bin/sendmail.postfix pointing to its sbin cousin.

The F41 machine is simpler:

$ locate sendmail.postfix
 /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix
 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix

One thing to note is that rpmconf -a reports a differenced main.cf and I did not install it because I wanted to keep my current one.  There is a merge option, but I am not sure what the following means:

Your choice: M
 You did not select any frontend for merge.
      Define it with environment variable 'MERGE' or flag -f.

I don't know if that makes a difference, but I do note that one of the changes there is in the path:

< command_directory = /usr/bin (for my default) ---
> command_directory = /usr/sbin (for the suggested main.cf.rpmnew)

I tried changing this in my /etc/postfix/main.cf to the latter version but it did not make a difference.

Thanks again!

Best wishes,
Ranjan

[Ranjan Maitra]

On Wed Jun11'25 09:21:33PM, Todd Zullinger wrote:
> From: Todd Zullinger 
> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 21:21:33 -0400
> To: [e-mail]
> Reply-To: Community support for Fedora users 
> Subject: Re: After upgrade to F42, mutt + postfix no longer able to send
>  email
>
> I wrote:
> > Mutt's default for $sendmail uses /usr/sbin/sendmail.  You
> > can check the value in your mutt, via `:set ?sendmail` and
> > then verify the path exists.  It is likely a symlink to
> > /etc/alternatives/mta which is then a symlink to something
> > like /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix.
> >
> > I just installed postfix and mutt in a Fedorda 42 container
> > and mutt reports: sendmail="usr/bin/sendmail -oem -oi" which
> > seems to be entirely broken.  You may have to set that
> > manually in your muttrc in addition to fixing the symlinks
> > to the sendmail binary, if they're broken.
>
> FWIW, https://bugzilla.redhat.com/2356981 is one of two open
> bugs for mutt, so as is often the case, checking bugzilla
> first is a good plan.

Yes, thank you for this. However, there seems to be an issue with the suggested fix:

sudo ln -s /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/bin

I get a dud:

lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 18 Jun 11 21:50 /usr/bin/sendmail -> /usr/sbin/sendmail

with the "/usr/sbin/sendmail" grayed out by the terminal (xterm).

And of course, this did not work: I guess I do not have /usr/sbin/sendmail on F42.

Many thanks,
Ranjan
> I had looked at the spec file for mutt and ran mutt -v and
> SENDMAIL points to /usr/bin/sendmail, so it's unclear
> whether the reported setting from ":set ?sendmail" is buggy
> output or is the leading / is actually missing somehow.
>
> I'd first ensure that the sendmail symlinks point to postfix
> as they should and then try to send mail before getting too
> lost in any mutt config settings.
>
> -- 
> Todd
> -- 
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[Tim]

On Wed, 2025-06-11 at 21:48 -0500, Ranjan Maitra via users wrote:
> Interestingly, the F42 machine has:
>  $ locate sendmail.postfix
>  /usr/bin/sendmail.postfix
>  /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix
>  /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix

Actually list them individually.  You'll most likely find that one of
them is a binary, and the others are symlinks to it.

And *that* may be where problems occur for some people.  They may not
have the binary, but have all the symlinks that point to it.

[Ranjan Maitra]

On Thu Jun12'25 02:04:32PM, Community Support for Fedora Users wrote:
> From: Tim via users 
> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2025 14:04:32 +0930
> To: Community support for Fedora users 
> Cc: Ranjan Maitra , Tim 
> Reply-To: Community support for Fedora users 
> Subject: Re: After upgrade to F42, mutt + postfix no longer able to send
>  email
>
> On Wed, 2025-06-11 at 21:48 -0500, Ranjan Maitra via users wrote:
> > Interestingly, the F42 machine has:
> >  $ locate sendmail.postfix
> >  /usr/bin/sendmail.postfix
> >  /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix
> >  /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
>
> Actually list them individually.  You'll most likely find that one of
> them is a binary, and the others are symlinks to it.

Thanks, here you go:

$ ll /usr/bin/sendmail.postfix 
 -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 32K May  8 19:00 /usr/bin/sendmail.postfix*
 $ ll /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix 
 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Jun 11 10:18 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*
 $ ll /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix 
 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 May  8 19:00 /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*

Many thanks,
Ranjan
> --
>
> uname -rsvp
> Linux 3.10.0-1160.119.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Jun 4 14:43:51 UTC 2024 x86_64
> (yes, this is the output from uname for this PC when I posted)
>
> Boilerplate:  All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
> I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list.
>
> -- 
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Hi
On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 23:49:30 -0500 Ranjan Maitra via users wrote:
> $ ll /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix 
>  lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Jun 11 10:18 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*
>  $ ll /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix 
>  lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 May  8 19:00 /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*

Those symlinks are correct, but I saw that (at least) the
/usr/bin/sendmail symlink was missing after an upgrade.

It should be: /usr/bin/sendmail -> /etc/alternatives/mta

The following works for me:

alternatives --remove mta /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
  dnf -y reinstall postfix     # To redo the alternatives
  systemctl restart postfix.service

[Tim]

Tim:
> > Actually list them individually.  You'll most likely find that one of
> > them is a binary, and the others are symlinks to it.

Ranjan Maitra:
> Thanks, here you go:
>
> $ ll /usr/bin/sendmail.postfix 
>  -rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 32K May  8 19:00 /usr/bin/sendmail.postfix*
>  $ ll /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix 
>  lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Jun 11 10:18 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*
>  $ ll /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix 
>  lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 May  8 19:00 /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*

Yes, just like I said.  One's a binary (the first one) the other two
are symlinks that point to it.

If you find you have a program that expects sendmail in yet another
location, you have a couple of choices.  Reconfigure that software.  Or
create a new symlink to the binary, in the location that software is
looking.

The alternatives scheme used symlinks.  Programs might request a
sendmail program.  And they'd look for something at a known location. 
The alternative thing would make a symlink from there that points to
the actual program on your system that was either sendmail, or an
equivalent.

After upgrade to F42, mutt + postfix no longer able to send email (Solved!)

[Ranjan Maitra]

On Thu Jun12'25 10:04:13AM, [e-mail] wrote:
> From: [e-mail]
> Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2025 10:04:13 +0200
> To: Community support for Fedora users 
> CC: Ranjan Maitra 
> Reply-To: Community support for Fedora users 
> Subject: Re: After upgrade to F42, mutt + postfix no longer able to send email (Solved!)
>
> Hi
> On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 23:49:30 -0500 Ranjan Maitra via users wrote:
> > $ ll /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix 
> >  lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 Jun 11 10:18 /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*
> >  $ ll /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix 
> >  lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 23 May  8 19:00 /usr/lib/sendmail.postfix -> ../bin/sendmail.postfix*
>
> Those symlinks are correct, but I saw that (at least) the
> /usr/bin/sendmail symlink was missing after an upgrade.
>
> It should be: /usr/bin/sendmail -> /etc/alternatives/mta
>
> The following works for me:
>
> alternatives --remove mta /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
>   dnf -y reinstall postfix     # To redo the alternatives
>   systemctl restart postfix.service

Thank you! And this fixed it for me too (at least for now).

Best wishes,
Ranjan