Sendmail Problem - host name lookup failure

[Robert C. Dunavent]

I have two HP9000 KSeries servers...one in New York, one in Boston. Both are running HP-UX10.2. I recently attempted to setup sendmail to work on both of these servers. I have the Boston server working correctly - I can send email from the server to myself. The New York server, however, cannot send email, despite the fact that I configured it identical to the one in Boston.

One thing I noticed is that the new York server is not accepting connections on port 25, whereas New York is. See below:

msphbos0ROOT:ps -eaf | grep sendmail
root 6225 1 0 Feb 24 ? 0:31 sendmail: accepting connections on port 25



msphnyc1ROOT:ps -eaf | grep sendmail
root 26104 1 0 08:54:31 ? 0:00 sendmail: accepting connections


Is there some sort of config file where i should specify new York to use port 25 for sendmail?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

It would be helpful to see the actual error message from mail.log.the

The patching of two systems may not be the same.

swlist -l product | grep -i sendmail

A likely cause of the problem is inability to resolve the domain name.

Check /etc/nsswitch.conf for resolve order.

Check that the systems /etc/resolv.conf servers can be reached via the network and they resolve the domian name of the mail correctly.

SEP

[Sunny123_1]

Hi

configuration file for sendmail is sendmail.cf

Regards
Sunny

[Robert C. Dunavent]

===FROM MAIL LOG===

Jul 23 09:24:32 msphnyc1 sendmail[8508]: KAA12547: to=me@verizon.com,
ctladdr=bkjb830 (129/20), delay=22:48:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay,
relay=bagate.verizon.com, stat=Deferred: Name server: bagate.verizon.com:
host name lookup failure


===PATCHING===
msphbos0ROOT:swlist -l product | grep -i sendmail
PHKL_15997 B.10.00.00.AA PANIC on disquota while executing sendmail
PHNE_17135 B.10.00.00.AA sendmail(1m) 8.8.6 cumulative patch.

msphnyc1ROOT:swlist -l product | grep -i sendmail
PHKL_15997 B.10.00.00.AA PANIC on disquota while executing sendmail


===NSSWITCH.CONF===

passwd: files
group: files
hosts: files
services: files
protocols: files
rpc: files
networks: files
rpc: files
netgroup: files
automount: files
aliases: files


NOTE: /etc/resolv.conf not in use. No DNS.

[Mel Burslan]

in order to "send" mail, the mail server is not required to accept connections on port 25 or any other port for that matter. Listening mail server is used for receiving mail and I am sure you are not using this server (or servers) as mail gateways. Or are you ?

But to send email out, from an hpux server which has no direct mail access, you will need to use your organization's mail relay server and you should have access to this server via port 25.

Make sure:

1. you have this line

DSmailrelayhost.mydomain.com

in your /etc/mail/sendmail.cf

2. check with the administrators of mailrelayhost to verify this server is authorized (by ip address) for mail forwarding

3. make sure you can telnet to port 25 of this mailrelayhost and get something like

220 EHLO yourserver.domain.com

or similar message. if it is timing out, it is time to talk to your network folks.

Hope this helps

[Mel Burslan]

my previous message came at the same time as your second message. From the looks of the log messages, your server is trying to connect to the mail server in verizon itself, without the help of a mail relay server.

please provide output for the output of this command from both Boston and Newyork servers:

grep ^DS /etc/mail/sendmail.cf

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

It is nsswitch.conf most likely.

hosts: files

For name resolution to work, you would need to have the IP address of the MX mail exchange server in /etc/hosts for file based resolution.

Check nsswitch.conf on the working system and see if it has DNS. Take hits hosts configuration and then make sure the name servers in /etc/resolv.conf work for at least the domain name in use in this process.

Also note that port 25 or port 53 (DNS) are often blocked in a Corporate environment.

SEP

[Robert C. Dunavent]

===SENDMAIL.CF===

msphbos0ROOT:grep ^DS /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
DSbagate.verizon.com

msphnyc1ROOT:grep ^DS /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
DSbagate.verizon.com


===NSSWITCH.CONF===

msphbos0ROOT:tail -15 nsswitch.conf
# See the Adminstering Internet Services Manual and the switch(4) man
# page for more information on the name service switch.
#

passwd: files
group: files
hosts: files
services: files
protocols: files
rpc: files
networks: files
rpc: files
netgroup: files
automount: files
aliases: files

msphnyc1ROOT:tail -15 nsswitch.conf
# See the Adminstering Internet Services Manual and the switch(4) man
# page for more information on the name service switch.
#

passwd: files
group: files
hosts: files
services: files
networks: files
protocols: files
rpc: files
publickey: files
netgroup: files
automount: files
aliases: files

[Mel Burslan]

what does

nslookup bagate.verizon.com

say on both servers ? Does it resolve to an ip address and the correct one at that ?

also

please post the screen capture from both Boston and NY servers after running this command on both (copy and paste the output is fine, you do not need to attach graphical screen capture):

telnet bagate.verizon.com 25

[Robert C. Dunavent]

Notice that Boston says..."looking up FILES" while New York does not:


msphbos0ROOT:nslookup bagate.verizon.com
Using /etc/hosts on: msphbos0

looking up FILES
Name: bagate.verizon.com
Address: 138.83.34.66

===========================================
msphnyc1ROOT:nslookup bagate.verizon.com
Using /etc/hosts on: msphnyc1

Name: bagate.verizon.com
Address: 138.83.34.66