Configuring sendmail with Microsoft Exchange 2000 on HP 11.00

[Amar Batham]

Hi
I have a HP box with sendmail installed.
Microsoft exchange 2000 server is installed on another machine and a SMTP daemon is running on that system.

Now i need to configure sendmail to talk to this exchange server.

Since i am not a Unix System Admin guy can some one please send me step by step instruction on how to go about it .

If some one can send me some documents related to the above topic .... it will be really helpful

Thanks in advance
Amar

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi

http://www.sendmail.org

Paula

[Doni Darmawan]

Hi, Amir.

1) Simply edit your /etc/hosts file in your HP-UX box. Add IP address and hostname of your Windows NT server in that file:
Ex.

10.1.1.1 myntserver

To make sure the connection is OK you can ping your NT box. (Ex: ping myntserver)

2) Edit your /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file,
if your DS macro (smart relay host) is empty you can add your NT's hostname here. Example:

DSmyntserver

3) Restart your sendmail daemon using this command:
/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop
/sbin/init.d/sendmail start

4) Type this command for testing your configuration
/usr/sbin/sendmail -v user@myntserver
Type your message and type '.' followed by Enter key to send your message.

5) If your sendmail configuration is ok and your SMTP daemon in your Windows running properly, your message will run correctly.

I did those steps above and work fine. You can also edit /usr/mail/root to forward automatically every message or alert sent to root's mailbox.

I hope this describe can help you...

Bye,

[Doni Darmawan · Accepted solution]

Hi, Amir.

1) Simply edit your /etc/hosts file in your HP-UX box. Add IP address and hostname of your Windows NT server in that file:
Ex.

10.1.1.1 myntserver

To make sure the connection is OK you can ping your NT box. (Ex: ping myntserver)

2) Edit your /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file,
if your DS macro (smart relay host) is empty you can add your NT's hostname here. Example:

DSmyntserver

3) Restart your sendmail daemon using this command:
/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop
/sbin/init.d/sendmail start

4) Type this command for testing your configuration
/usr/sbin/sendmail -v user@myntserver
Type your message and type '.' followed by Enter key to send your message.

5) If your sendmail configuration is ok and your SMTP daemon in your Windows running properly, your message will run correctly.

I did those steps above and work fine. You can also edit /usr/mail/root to forward automatically every sending message or alert to root's mailbox so you can monitor your HP-UX server from your Windows desktop.

I hope this describe can help you...

Bye,

[Amar Batham]

Hi Doni
Thnaks for the response.
At last some one responded.

I had already tried the steps given described by you. When i give the command
/usr/sbin/sendmail -v user@myntserver
I get the following message
user@myntserver... myntserver: Name server timeout
user@myntserver... Transient parse error -- message queued for future delivery
Hello ! This is a test message
.
user@myntserver ... queued


There are certain queries i have .
1) Do i need to configure DNS(BIND) services on my UNIX box.
2) There is a way to test whether port 25 of NT server can accept ur request or not.

telnet myntserver 25
But in my case it doesn't gets connected
Trying...
Connected to myntserver.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.

Does that mean that smart relay is not configured on my Exchange server??

Well my network admin guy says that SMTP server is running and he even showed me by sending some mails through it.

But i am not too sure about it.

can u help me with that

Bye the way my name is Amar ;-)

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi Amar

Can you ping your exchange server?

As your telnet failed I would imagine not.

Do you have any devices between your HP box and the MS box.

Try a traceroute from the HP server and a tracert from the MS system.

Paula

[Ron Kinner]

Amar,

The error message:
"user@myntserver... myntserver: Name server timeout" indicates that you are having a problem with the DNS server. Try:
nslookup myntserver
and see what it says. Odds are that it will time out. It should eventually go to your /etc/hosts file to pull the ip address but I don't think that is working either.

You can change the order of the search to make it work or get your DNS server to respond. DNS server are stored in /etc/resolv.conf
and the file /etc/nsswitch.conf controls the order that it looks in.

Ron

[Doni Darmawan]

Hi Amar, (sorry about your name)

Right now in our HP-UX box have not been configured DNS yet and there is no problem occurred according this issue. And I guess you never get any connection to your Windows via telnet, unless your Windows server has started its telnet server.

Try this:
- edit your sendmail.cf file and check the Dj$w macro. Uncomment it by deleting '#' and change "Dj$w.FOO.com" to "Dj$w." (don't forget the dot at the end of macro).
- As Mr. Ron Kinner said, edit /etc/nsswitch.conf. Add lines:
hosts: files
aliases: files
- Restart again your sendmail daemon.
- Try sending your message.

I hope my describe can help you.

Regards,
Doni

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Amar,

The sendmail is looking for DNS by default because that is how it is configured by defaukt for sendmail. Edit the file /etc/mail/switch.conf and choose files as your default name resolution. Then restart sendmail and try the sendmail once again.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Amar Batham]

Hello Everyone

Paula
Yes i can ping my MS box from my UNIX server.

Ron
I tried the command nslookup myntserver
and it gave the correct IP Address and Server name. It is using /etc/hosts file for name resolution .

Well i now have a big problem, my sendmail daemon is not running after making all the changes. I don't know why .

When i give /sbin/init.d/sendmail start
it gives me no messages but when i look for the sendmail process ps -aef |grep sendmail
i don't get any process listed.

This was running absolutely well before ... i don't know what went wrong.

Here are the changes i made

Dj$w. in /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file.
changes in /etc/nsswitch.conf ( as described by u )
Rebuild the aliases database. ( i don't think this should be a problem )
changed /etc/mail/switch.conf as asked by Sanjay.

I even tried undoing all the things i did above , but the same result.
Where have i gone wrong ... can anyone help me on that.


Amar

[Amar Batham]

Hi

I was able to start the sendmail server by the following command.
/usr/lib/sendmail -bd -q15m

( /sbin/init.d/sendmail start didn't work )

All the changes were made.

Now when i give

/usr/sbin/sendmail -v user@mynthost

i get the following message
user@mynthost... Connecting to mynthost. via esmtp...
abatham@mynthost... Deferred: Connection reset by knightsindia.co.in.
Closing connection to mynthost.

[Steven Gillard_2]

Your problem now is that the nt server is resetting the connection to port 25 after it is established. The fact that your telnet session is closed straight away without a banner message also proves this.

Its likely there are some access rules on the exchange server that are preventing you hpux host from connecting. Talk to the administrator and ask him to add your hpux systems ip address to this list.

Regards,
Steve

[Amar Batham]

Hi

That did the trick for me Steven. Now i am able to mail it.

I would also like to thank Doni, Sanjay, Paula and Ron for all the help.


Well at present i can only mail in my own domain, can someone tell me how do i configure the sendmail to send mail to some other domain/s.

Once again thanks
Regards
Amar