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HP server not sending out email to relay server

 
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Simeon Harwood
Regular Advisor

HP server not sending out email to relay server

Hi all,
I have something that should be very easy to fix, but I just can't seem to get it working.
I have a server running HP-UX 11i, and I want emails to be sent out to a relay server.
The only edits that I normally make in sendmail.cf are these: -
DS
DM
Dm
Usually these changes work fine, but on one machine it dosn't work at all.
I can mail root OK, but any user off the box is not getting any mail.
If I look in mail.log, I can see that the relay is not being picked up: -

Feb 15 12:26:42 xxxxxx sendmail[5228]: MAA05228: from=xxxx, size=149, class=0, pri=30149, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200802151226.MAA05228@xxxxxxx.>, relay=root@localhost

How do I get mail to use the relay. I'm not running the senmail processes, but then I shouldn't have to. I have other hosts working fine with this config, and in their mail.log's the relay is show fine.

Help please, this is giving me a headache!!!!

Thanks,
Sime.
You never had this problem with a pencil and paper!
9 REPLIES 9
TTr
Honored Contributor

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

Check if there is something in the relay-server that prevents sendmsil form this particular server.

Try "telnet relay-server 25" to see if you connect to your relay.
Simeon Harwood
Regular Advisor

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

OK, I've tried that, and I can connect to the relay server. The relay server is an MS Exchange server. I know that there is a setting in there that allows other hosts to allow it to be used as a relay, and this has been set for this host.

# telnet xxxxxxxx 25
Trying...
Connected to xxxxxxxxx.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 xxxxxxxxxxx Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.3959 ready at Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:58:07 +0000

telnet> quit
Connection closed.
You never had this problem with a pencil and paper!
TTr
Honored Contributor

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

Can you try a different relay server? That would confirm if the problem is in the exchange server or your sendmail server.
Steven Schweda
Honored Contributor

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

> telnet> quit

Well, don't stop there!

> I'm not running the senmail processes, but
> then I shouldn't have to.

Huh? Then who's looking at your sendmail.cf
file? And if no one is, then why are you
editing it?
Simeon Harwood
Regular Advisor

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

Ok, I tried pointing at another relay server and I got the same error. We had a look on the relay server, and there was no enty for a mial beeing passed, so It's not leaving the HP box at all. It seems to be queueing it on the server it's self in /var/spool/mqueue
Here is the tail from the mail.log


Feb 15 13:59:57 xxxxx sendmail[9019]: NAA09019: to=xxxx@xxxxx.co.uk, delay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, relay=xxxxxx.xxxxxx.co.uk, stat=Transient parse error -- message queued for future delivery
Feb 15 13:59:57 xxxxxxx sendmail[9019]: NAA09019: from=xxxxxx, size=149, class=0, pri=30149, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200802151359.NAA09019@xxxxxx.>, relay=root@localhost
Feb 15 13:59:57 xxxxxxx sendmail[9019]: NAA09019: to=xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.co.uk, delay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, stat=queued
You never had this problem with a pencil and paper!
Tim Nelson
Honored Contributor

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

try the below and see what the error message is.

echo "this is a test"|sendmail -v someone@yahoo.com
Simeon Harwood
Regular Advisor

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

That was very usefull Tim, It looks like I have a name resolution error.

xxxxxx.co.uk: Name server timeout
xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.co.uk... Transient parse error -- message queued for future delivery
xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx... queued

I'm using NIS as a name resolution service. I can do an nslookup on the realy server, and I can ping it too.
So now I'm lost again....
You never had this problem with a pencil and paper!
TTr
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

So the problem is locally with your server. I am suspecting hostname resolution related issues. Please look into that.

You may consider turning on sendmail temporarily just in case it reveals any issues in the mail.log.

It is OK to leave sendmail off for what you need. The sendmail is still invoked as a client process by the local UNIX mailer the the relaying in sendmail.cf still works!

In general if you don't run sendmail as a daemon you lose the server functionality of it such as
1) You can not receive email
2) Your mail queue will not be processed.
3) A failed SMTP connection will abort and the mail will NOT be delivered and will NOT be retried either.

In your environment #3 may have an impact. If you still don't want to run sendmail as a server, you can take care of #3 and #2 by running a cron job that processes the queue every so often.
Simeon Harwood
Regular Advisor

Re: HP server not sending out email to relay server

Spot on.
It was a name resolution problem with my local server.
I had to alter the lookup order in /etc/nsswitch.conf
I was looking for NIS first then file for my hosts. I swaped the round and BINGO, it worked.

Thanks for the help.

SIme.
You never had this problem with a pencil and paper!