Sendmail Config

[Graham]

Does anyone have any experience of configuring send mail especially on a sco unixware box.

I've done it on another machine by setting the masqurade and smart host to relay it out through the exchange server on the lan by opening up the echange box to allow relaying from the box. It worked fine under linux but im struggling on unixware 7.1.1 for a start its not obvious how to compile the sendmail.cf as there is no sendmail.mc and the only mention i can find about setting things up is a mailadmin prog ( that doesnt run to well on my emulator) or it suggests hand modinf sendmail.cf

Cheers

G

[ThePassenger]

SCO? *points and laughs* seriously, why'd you go with SCO unixware? It's always been a pain in the ass as you're finding out.
AIX is marginally better... but I'm guessing you don't have a Power machine to run it on?

Best bet would be... return the whole lot to the working configuration.

[Graham]

Thats the box thats running the app so I've got no choice. Its never been configured as its never been needed so there is no running config to go back to ...;(

[TheExcession]

Can you install Webalizer and do it from there?
Send Mail config is notoriously obtuse a prone to mistakes.

[rich1231]

Does the Sendmail process have to sit on the same box, surely it can be called from another machine?

[Graham]

rich1231 said:

Does the Sendmail process have to sit on the same box, surely it can be called from another machine?

Im open to ideas on how that would work. I think the unixware box is the only non microsoft server on site..

I did wonder about ftping the file ( created every 15 mins) to somewhere on the exchange server and seeing if they can pick it up and mail it... can you do that on exchange.


What Im actually doing is running an sql query on a db, formating the output and then mailing it as an attatchment via a cron job using Mutt and sendmail

G

[grumbledoak]

Sounds like you are trying to fix a problem of your own creation (only Unix box? Yup, lets do it on that one) !

Why not call the same query from e.g. a VB app on an Windoze box with working email, and forget all about sendmail config files?

[Graham]

grumbledoak said:

Sounds like you are trying to fix a problem of your own creation (only Unix box? Yup, lets do it on that one) !

Nope I have no control over what boxes there are

grumbledoak said:

Why not call the same query from e.g. a VB app on an Windoze box with working email, and forget all about sendmail config files?

might be a bit difficult as the app runs on the unix box and there is no way to hook into it from outside. so im stuck with running it where it is. if it was running red hat its a piece of cake ;-)

G

[rich1231]

Graham said:

grumbledoak said:

Sounds like you are trying to fix a problem of your own creation (only Unix box? Yup, lets do it on that one) !

Nope I have no control over what boxes there are

grumbledoak said:

Why not call the same query from e.g. a VB app on an Windoze box with working email, and forget all about sendmail config files?

might be a bit difficult as the app runs on the unix box and there is no way to hook into it from outside. so im stuck with running it where it is. if it was running red hat its a piece of cake ;-)

G

yeah there is if you are sendmailing out then you can get files off it

generate your files, then have a script to either sftp, rsynch or have the dir shared so your other boxes can see it. Script the file to be picked up and emailed from exchange.. it must be easier that your hassles with sendmail and the continued overhead of supporting it.

[malman]

Hand modify the .cf but you probably need to restart the sendmail daemon after editing the config file to get it to pickup the new config though.

You can also run sendmail from the command line with the debug options so you can figure out why its not processing the mail properly. Can't remember of the top of my head how to do it as its been a while but "man sendmail" might give clues unless the person who installed it decided to save every scrap of space and not install the manual files

BTW there is also a drop folder in Exchange below the smtp server root folder where you can drop rfc compliant mail files for processing.

Edited by malman on Tuesday 20th March 10:28

[malman]

ThePassenger said:

AIX is marginally better...

There's an understatement!

[Graham]

rich1231 said:

yeah there is if you are sendmailing out then you can get files off it

generate your files, then have a script to either sftp, rsynch or have the dir shared so your other boxes can see it. Script the file to be picked up and emailed from exchange.. it must be easier that your hassles with sendmail and the continued overhead of supporting it.

Yeah thats the backup plan im working on at the moment.. Creating and ftping out it no problems provided they've got iis running somewhere, and leaving their exchange guy the problem of getting it out

Actually i've just thought there is another unix box not sure what flavour it is though, and the chances of the admin letting me have any config changes are slim.

Im waiting for the exchange guy to get back to me.

Id still like to figure out the problem on the unixware box though.. if i can get it working it allows me to do quite a few other usefull things...

I've added the exchange box into the smtp channels setting and looking at syslog it seems to be trying but
getting a host name lookup failure

"Mar 20 10:34:42 MUCONPLUS sendmail[28489]: VAA21728: to=[e-mail], ctladdr=addman (102/1005), delay=12:41:15, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=SMTP, relay=moexvirtual, stat=Deferred: Name se
rver: moexvirtual: host name lookup failure"

moexvirtual is the exchange box, and thats sitting in /etc/hosts ok and resolves fine.

I can also telnet in on port 25 from the box and send mail manually.

the to domain also resolves on the box as well.

is that error saying moexvirtual is the lookup thats failing or its trying to use moexvirtual as the dns?

G

[Graham]

malman said:

you shouldn't have to compile the sendmail.cf as that is the config file that gets created when you compile a sendmail.mc AFAIK. You probably need to restart the snedmail daemon after editing the config file to get it to pickup the new config though.

Sorry thats what i meant complile sendmail.mc to build the sendmail.cf there doesnt appear to be a sendmail.mc and its done by some obscure mailadmin prog. that goes screwy on my emulator over the vpn..

I've stopped and restarted the deamon after each change.

malman said:

You can also run sendmail from the command line with the debug options so you can figure out why its not processing the mail properly. Can't remember of the top of my head how to do it as its been a while but "man sendmail" might give clues unless the person who installed it decided to save every scrap of space and not install the manual files

i'll have a fiddle with that i've been trying to figure out what the syslog is telling me.

malman said:

BTW there is also a drop folder in Exchange below the smtp server root folder where you can drop rfc compliant mail files for processing.

thats interesting tell me more


Ta

G

[malman]

Is it configured to use DNS?

what happens if you nslookup moexvirtual can you get its mx record

Edited by malman on Tuesday 20th March 10:38

[malman]

exchange has a drop foler here on a default install

C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1\PickUp

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/30604

[Graham]

# nslookup moexvirtual
Server: modc.xxx-local.xxx.gov.uk
Address: 172.16.1.20

*** modc.xxx-local.xxx.gov.uk can't find moexvirtual: Server failed



and a normal nslookup
# nslookup
Default Server: modc.xxx-local.xxx.gov.uk
Address: 172.16.1.20


(ignore the XXX's)

[Graham]

malman said:

exchange has a drop foler here on a default install

C:Program FilesExchsrvrMailrootvsi 1PickUp

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/30604

mmm can i send attatchments with that ?

[malman]

attachments> yes - I just did on mine.

looks like you have a dns issue - is the server listed in that dns server? can you resolve its fully qualified domain name on that dns server?

[Graham]

malman said:

attachments> yes - I just did on mine.

looks like you have a dns issue - is the server listed in that dns server? can you resolve its fully qualified domain name on that dns server?

what the moexvirtual on the dns modc.xxx-local.xxx.gov.uk

the target domains reolve ok


I've since tried playing with perl to talk directly to the smtp on moexvirtual but the right perl module (net::smtp) isnt on the box arghh


they did mutter somthing about moexvirtual being a virtual

[zumbruk]

Sounds like sendmail doesn't know what it's own name is.

What does "hostname" return?

Is the syslog full of messages of the form "sendmail: Unable to determine FQDN - pausing", or something like that?