Diagnosing sendmail to CSSMTP bridge problems

With the sendmail to CSSMTP bridge (sendmail bridge), you can send emails by using the facilities of the z/OS® shell. The sendmail bridge command parses input command switches, reads the mail message from the UNIX System Services file, and processes the mail message. The input mail message is updated by adding SMTP commands and SMTP headers, if no headers are specified in the input mail message. The updated mail message is transmitted to the JES spool data set that Communications Server SMTP (CSSMTP) application can process.

See z/OS Communications Server: IP Configuration Guide for overview and setup of sendmail to CSSMTP bridge. Also see z/OS Communications Server: IP Configuration Guide for overview and setup of CSSMTP.

When you use the sendmail bridge command to send email, problems can be detected in the command itself or in the CSSMTP application.
  • Take one of the following steps to detect an error parsing the command, reading the input mail message, or updating the mail message before transmitting the mail message to the JES spool data set that the Communications Server SMTP (CSSMTP) application processes.
    Tip: When redirecting output under z/OS UNIX, nothing is displayed on the command prompts, and it is difficult to know when input is requested.
  • When the command is processed successfully and is queued to the JES spool queue, you should see a logged message on the screen or in the output file with >>>One JES spool file is built and queued to cssmtp_external_writer_name.
    ezatmail (sendmail bridge): running on Wed Jun 29 16:21:53 2016 
Compiled on Jun 28 2016 at 17:40:28                                          
Input command is: sendmail -t  <inputmails 
>>>One JES spool file is built and queued to CSSMTP
    • You can use command -v to see more information about the updated mail message that is queued to the JES spool queue.
      ezatmail (sendmail bridge): running on Wed Jun 29 16:21:53 2016 
Compiled on Jun 28 2016 at 17:40:28                                          
Input command is: sendmail -t -v <inputmails 
>>>>>EHLO tstsys.sample.com                
>>>>>MAIL From:<user1@tstsys.sample.com>  
>>>>>RCPT To:<user1@work.com>      
>>>>>RCPT To:<user2@work.com>
>>>>>DATA                                  
>>>>>From: user1@tstsys.sample.com 
>>>>>To: user1@work.com, user2@work.com  
Total SMTP body 7 line(s) not shown        
>>>>>.                                     
>>>>>QUIT   
>>>One JES spool file is built and queued to CSSMTP
    • If the mail message was queued to the JES spool queue, but it has not been processed by the CSSMTP application, one of the following errors might be the cause:
      • The CSSMTP external writer name might be defined incorrectly to the sendmail bridge. For more information about defining the CSSMTP external writer name, see Sendmail to CSSMTP bridge in z/OS Communications Server: IP Configuration Reference.
      • The CSSMTP application with the defined external writer name is not running.
      • If the sendmail bridge configuration statement D{tls_version} is configured, TLS protection is required to send the message. The secured connection is setup between CSSMTP and the target mail server based on configured AT-TLS policy. Verify that the necessary AT-TLS policy is defined. See Resolving mail problems in Diagnosing Communications Server SMTP application problems.
      • Use the $DOUTCLASS(A) command to check the disposition of message class A. If the disposition is HOLD, use the $TOUTCLASS(A),OUTDISP=(WRITE,WRITE) command to have data sets that are spooled to message class A go to the output queue rather than the hold queue.
  • If the mail message was processed by the CSSMTP application, but the mail message has not been received by the recipients, see Diagnosing Communications Server SMTP application problems for more information.