Local Configuration Error: Mail Loops back to me

[Chad Florian]

Hello all.. Although it's not technically supported (why I'm not sure), I have sendmail running in an MC/ServiceGuard package. This server handles mail for a bunch of hosts. Everything is working like a champ. I have the cw file set to accept mail from all the hosts it's supposed to. The package has it's own IP and dns entry,etc. My problem is... Sending mail on the host where the package is running. The local sendmail process fires up and connects to the sendmail package IP as it should. But then it realizes it's actually on the same host and tells me "mail loops back to me (MX problem?)"...

Any idea how to force sendmail to allow this from certain hosts?

TIA,
-Chad

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Chad,

It HAS to relay mail somewhere.
What's defined as the smart relay (DS) host in the sendmail.cf file.
IF you have that set to the "virtual" IP - well then you've just defined a nice little loop.
So the questions are"
1) What moves mail OUT of the domain?
2) What routes internal mail?
I would recommend that you define the outbound mail server as the relay host & let it move mail to the internal relay. That should stop the loop.

HTH,
Jeff

[Ermin Borovac]

Please make sure you have MC/SG package name and corresponding FQDN in /etc/mail/sendmail.cw.

xxx
xxx.yyy.zzz

[Steven E. Protter]

sendmail -v -d8.99 -d38.99 someone@yahoo.com
type some text

.


Trace the route.

make corrections to sendmail.cf or the sendmail macros and restart sendmail.

Test again.

SEP

[Chad Florian]

To clarify...

The local sendmail DS (and DH) macro is configured to point to the service guard package. This is the case for all of the servers on that subnet, including the one where the serviceguard package runs. The serviceguard package has it's own config or course. IT is configured to deliver mail locally and it's DS macro is set to a company wide mail server. This configuration works great for all of the servers except wherever I run the package.

[Chad Florian]

I found the answer in my trusty O'Rielly sendmail book...

I needed to set the F=k option for the Mrelay agent on the client systems:

Mrelay, P=[IPC], F=kmDFMuXa8, S=11/31, R=61, E=\r\n, L=2040,
T=DNS/RFC822/SMTP,
A=IPC $h

It's the client that was checking for this loop so I just set this option on the hosts that can run the serviceguard package.