"Apache Can't Send Mail !"

Document Version: 001b.15-September-2006 Howie Dines

Some php scripts have the ability to send notification emails to the administrator.

You may find that these emails are not being relayed by sendmail as the user 'apache' is unknown at host. There seem to be a number of possible causes with their fixes that can be tried.

In the case of the comments page on this site, this issue was fixed using the following script from Brian at www.nuonce.net

The following script, adds "apache" to the virtusertable

# Fix Sendmail not having "apache" in the virtual user table
cd /etc/mail
/bin/cat virtusertable | grep "apache\@" > /dev/null
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
/usr/bin/printf "apache@`hostname`\tadmin" >> /etc/mail/virtusertable
/usr/sbin/makemap hash /etc/mail/virtusertable < virtusertable
fi

The complete thread showing alternative options can be viewed here.