It is better to compile sendmail to do not allow run milters with root privilegies. Im suggest to add -D_FFR_MILTER_ROOT_UNSAFE. Cut from libmilter/README: Note: we strongly recommend not to run any milter as root. Libmilter does not need root access to communicate with sendmail. It is a good security practice to run a program only with root privileges if really necessary. A milter should probably check first whether it runs as root and refuse to start in that case. There is a compile time option _FFR_MILTER_ROOT_UNSAFE which keeps libmilter from unlinking a socket when running as root. It is recommended to turn on this option: APPENDDEF(`conf_libmilter_ENVDEF', `-D_FFR_MILTER_ROOT_UNSAFE ')
added to sendmail-8.12.7-3 or newer thanks, Florian La Roche