Remove Sendmail

Here's how to remove sendmail from your system.

Use it "at your on risk"

- Check for sendmail in /etc/init.d/
 # ls -la /etc/init.d
 # chmod -x /etc/init.d/sendmail - remove the execute

- Find sendmail in your boot scripts. It's usually in either /etc/rc or
  /etc/init.d/sendmail. It looks like
          sendmail -bd -q15m
  -q15m means that it should run the queue every 15 minutes; you may
  see a different number. Comment out this line.

- Kill the sendmail daemon. You should first kill -STOP the daemon; if
  any children are running, you should kill -CONT, wait, kill -STOP
  again, and repeat ad nauseam. If there aren't any children, kill
  -TERM and then kill -CONT.

- Check whether you have any messages in the sendmail queue,
  /var/spool/mqueue. If you do, you will have to try flushing them with
  sendmail.bak -q. If necessary, wait a while and run sendmail.bak -q
  again. Repeat until the queue is empty. This may take several days.
  or delete the messages :)
  # rm /var/spool/mqueue/*
  # rm /var/spool/mqueue-client/*

- Check the crons
 # ls -a /etc/cron*
 - check if there are any sendmail files
 - and rename or delete them

- Remove the setuid bit on the sendmail binary, to prevent local users
  from gaining extra privileges through sendmail's security holes. The
  binary may be at several different locations:
 # chmod 0 /usr/lib/sendmail
 # chmod 0 /usr/sbin/sendmail
 # chmod 0 /usr/lib/sendmail.mx

- Move the sendmail binary out of the way:
 # mv /usr/lib/sendmail /usr/lib/sendmail.bak
 # mv /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail.bak

- Check and remove the users if you want:
 # more /etc/passwd  -- check for smmsp, smmta
 # userdel smmsp   -- delete the user smmsp
 # userdel smmta   -- delete the user smmta