[wellylug] sendmail problems

[Achim Dreyer]

On Sat, 23 Aug 2003, Rob Giltrap wrote:

> Any reason your not using Evolution or even Mozilla Thunderbird as
> opposed to Mutt?

The question was about a MTA problem not a MUA one, so changing MUA 
doesn't help here.


> On Sun, 2003-08-24 at 18:25, Persian wrote:
> > Hi all
> > 
> > I have Redhat 9 and I use mutt, which I believe from a book I have that mutt
> > is using sendmail. Until last week I had woody and mutt used exim.(I believe)

The MUA is usually using whatever MTA is installed.


> > These are the errors I get:
> > 
> > (In my book it says I need to edit .mc (macros) files and then to generate new .cf files
> > I need to run #make -C /etc/mail to put the changes into the .cf files.)

So you have a distribution where a Makefile lies in /etc/mail which upon 
invocation generates the sendmail.cf from your m4 macro files.


> > ----------------------------------------------- Error no.1.
> > . while talking to mail.vlists.net.:
> > 
> > >>>> >>> MAIL From:<lyndsay at localhost.localdomain> SIZE=1258
> > 
> > > <<< 553 5.5.4 <lyndsay at localhost.localdomain>... Real domain name required for sender address
> > > 501 5.6.0 Data format error
> > > ----
> > ------------------------------------------------------- Error no.2. (3 different mails sent)
> > he original message was received at Mon, 18 Aug 2003 20:17:56 -1200
> > from localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]
> > 
> >    ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
> >    <3differentparadiseusers at paradise.net.nz>
> >        (reason: 553 sorry, your envelope sender is in my badmailfrom list (#5.7.1))
> >        
> >           ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> > 	  ... while talking to pop3.paradise.net.nz.:
> > 	  
> > 	  >>>>>> DATA
> > 	  
> > 	  <<< 553 sorry, your envelope sender is in my badmailfrom list (#5.7.1)
> > 	  550 5.1.1 <all3oftheseparadiesusers at paradise.net.nz>... User unknown
> > 	  <<< 503 RCPT first (#5.5.1)
> > 	  
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------	  

.. hmm, this is a delivery problem and all my mail servers clearly would 
never accept mails originating from servers who claim to be 
'localhost.localdomain', => please correct your host configuration to 
reflect a _valid_ hostname.


> > All I have put so far is the line in sendmail files via the above method
> >  -   define( SMART_HOST', smtp.ihug.co.nz'). 
> >  This line was remarked and it had smtp.yourprovider

.. it's the host your MTA forwards all non-local mail to 


> > Can anyone help me with this?

Please read the example configurations and the sendmail doc! sendmail is 
so powerful that it can do almost anything (except cooking coffee - that 
planned for the next release).


After configuring the correct hostname (`hostname` and /etc/hosts!)
you could try this example mc:

--snip--
divert(-1)
#
# Copyright (c) 2003 My myself and I.
#
divert(0)
VERSIONID(`@(#) Airbus Client 2003-04-10')dnl
OSTYPE(`linux')dnl
DOMAIN(`generic')dnl
EXPOSED_USER(`root')dnl
Cwlocalhost localhost.$m $w $j
define(`ALIAS_FILE',`/etc/mail/aliases')dnl             Aliases
define(`HELP_FILE',`/etc/mail/sendmail.hf')dnl
define(`STATUS_FILE',`/etc/mail/sendmail.st')dnl
define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.ihug.co.nz').
define(`confCW_FILE',`/etc/mail/sendmail.cw')dnl
define(`confTO_QUEUERETURN',`3d')dnl
FEATURE(`use_cw_file')dnl
MAILER(`local')dnl
MAILER(`smtp')dnl
--snip--

PS:

MUA: Message User Agent     - The client frontend
MTA: Message Transfer Agent - The mail server doing all the hard work



Regards,
Achim Dreyer
--
A. Dreyer, Senior SysAdmin (UNIX&Network) / Internet Security Consultant