From: JackTebbe@aol.com
Date: Mon Jun 21 2004 - 15:48:05 EDT
Thanks to all who replied and a special thanks to Bill Hassell
for his very detailed reply. I'll include his advice in this summary. The bottom line is what I thought was a simple name change is a "catastrophic" change for sendmail. Also, the general concencus is administering sendmail is "interesting" to say the least.
In a message dated 6/18/2004 1:56:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, bill@billhassell.com writes:
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
>
>
> > Well, I decided to rename this server and
> > that seemed to go okay...but the E-mails that are sent out would
> not work.
> > All mail from that server would not go through SMTP, they were
> staying
> > local to the machine.
>
> Renaming a Unix machine is a catastrophic change for
> sendmail as well as Xwindows ----- Windows (CDE, etc).
>
>
>
> > All of the other workstations I have would E-mail
> > with no problem.
>
> There are a dozen different versions of sendmail and
> unfortunately, the sendmail.cf file format is NOT always
> forward or backward compatible. When you patch sendmail,
> there is almost always a new sendmail.cf file but rather
> than destroying all your customizations, the new file is
> stored in /usr/newconfig/etc/mail and you are supposed to
> read through your working file and the new one to see what
> differences there are. Unfortunately, diff won't work.
> Comments are changed, line items are renamed and located
> in another location, etc.
>
> > After beating my head against the wall for hours checking
> > every configuration I could thing of, a friend of mine
> recommended editing
> > the /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file and putting our SMTP server in
> various
> > locations. This worked and there was much joy, but what is
> bothering me is
> > none of our other machines and in fact this one before the name
> change,
> > had any reference to our SMTP server at all and they all E-mail
> just fine.
> > What am I missing? I ran this by the Network ad admin and he
> just
> throws up
> > his hands and says "its Unix, i only know Windoze. I think it's
> something
> > on his end but can't prove it. Any advice would be appreciated.
>
>
> This is a feature of sendmail, a VERY old product but not
> mature. (mature products get better with age, sendmail
> continues to become more convoluted).
>
> Current versions of sendmail is critically dependent on
> MX records in your DNS server, and often, these are forgotten
> especially when the DNS server is on Windoze . Another file
> that is also very important is /etc/mail/sendmail.cw where
> the local names of the machine are located. It should contain:
>
> localhost ----- local host local-host
>
> mymachine ----- my machine my-machine
>
> mymachine ----- my machine my-machine.mydomain.org
>
> and any other names that the local machine might be known as
> when receiving email. Another very important file is:
>
> /var/adm/syslog/mail.log
>
>
> and also the command: mailq shows mail that is stuck
> with a short error message while mail.log shows more of the
> details. When you have DNS issues (there are some DNS admins
> that know sendmail but most do not. If you are relaying to
> an SMTP server such as Exchange, make sure your "DS" entry in
> sendmail.cf is in square brackets:
>
> DS[smtp.mydomain.org]
>
>
> And if mail.log shows the error message:
>
> "cannot automatically determine your domain"
>
> there are 3 fixes:
>
> 1) edit /etc/hosts and add your local host as an FQDN,
> then edit /etc/nsswitch. conf and put files then dns for
> resolution.
>
>
> 2) edit sendmail.cf and put in the DJ entry:
>
>
> Dj$w.mydomain.org
>
>
> 3) or as in #2, change DJ:
>
>
> Dj$w.
>
>
> (note the trailing dot)
>
> There is no way for a Unix or Network admin to know this
> stuff without being involved with sendmail for a very long
> time and following all the latest changes.
>
> (and you might look at Postfix as a replacement for
> sendmail)
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
>
> Bill Hassell
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