Greetings

I have a most peculiar problem and am seeking advice.

I'm at a loss on this one. I've googled around and searched for anyone else who might have had this problem, but I've found nothing.

I have two systems showing the same symptoms. /usr/bin/mail, part of the Debian mailutils package, can't send mail from the root user if Courier MTA is the local MTA. A nearly identical system using exim has no problem.

Sending mail from other users on these systems works perfectly. This is also not a problem of the MTA accepting inbound mail to the root user, as I successfully receive those mails.

I suspect a compatibility problem between mailutils and courier's sendmail, but I'm not sure about it, or why this is only affecting the root user.

If I do, as the root user, the following single-line command;

echo "I like cheese." | /usr/bin/mail -s "test root mail" -t jes...@opendreams.net

Then nothing happens -- the mail disappears into nothingness, with the exception of the following syslog message (sorrows is the local hostname);

Jun 17 23:24:44 sorrows 250 Ok.

The same command as any other user works just fine.