incoming eMail problem

[Michael D. Zorn]

I just changed the hostname of my server (and got that straightened out).

The problem is now, eMail doesn't get through any more - from outside the company. (I'm getting eMail from these forums at a working address.)

I can send mail from inside the company, but from outside - like Yahoo - I get this:

[quote]
The original message was received at Fri, 3 Aug 2007 12:39:03 -0700 (PDT) from localhost [127.0.0.1]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

(reason: 501 Sender domain must exist)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to dms-1.xyz.com.:
>>> MAIL From: SIZE=2917
<<< 501 Sender domain must exist
501 5.6.0 Data format error

"501 Sender domain must exist", but surely "yahoo.com" exists? And why would it care? If the company is selectively blocking traffic, wouldn't there be a message about "message refused"?

[Geoff Wild · Accepted solution]

Sendmail looks at the first line in /etc/hosts - unless you have masquerading setup in sendmail.cf

So, make sure your server ip and new hostname are first after the comments in /etc/hosts (and fully qualified)


192.1.1.5 servername servername.yourdomain.com

Rgds...Geoff

[Keith Johnson]

Also check to make sure your DNS resolution is working. Although yahoo.com certainly exists, your server has no way of knowing this if DNS isn't working correctly.

[Michael D. Zorn]

I hate it when that happens:

/etc/hosts has

aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd dms-1

without the fully qualified domain.

The "Sender domain" error threw me way off track.

It also explains why I can eMail from inside.

I fixed that, now I'll try again from Yahoo ... still the same error - but I'll try again in an hour or so.

You did point out an error here that needed fixing.

[Geoff Wild]

If sendmail is running as a daemon - then restart it:

/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop

/sbin/init.d/sendmail start

The other thing to check/fix - is set the DM macro in /etc/mail/sendmail.cf

DMyourdomain.com

If not there - then you could set that and bounce sendmail again.

Rgds...Geoff

[Michael D. Zorn]

Keith: I'm pretty sure our DNS is working OK - I can ping the host from my PC on the network.

[Michael D. Zorn]

Geoff: My sendmail.cf has

DM

(nothing after that) I haven't ever changed it.

I just noticed that a ps for 'sendm' finds

... sendmail: accepting connections on port 25

And what I used to see is

sendmail -bd -q30m accepting connections

... so evidently it's not running as a daemon.

#/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop
(ok)
#/sbin/init.d/sendmail start
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf: WARNING: dangerous write permissions
/etc/mail/aliases: (..... ok )
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf: WARNING: dangerous write permissions

and ps still shows

... sendmail: accepting connections on port 25

Somewhere in /sbin/init.d/sendmail is a line

/usr/sbin/sendmail -bd -q30m && echo "sendmail", but at first glance, it's inside a few levels of "if ... elif"

... and the only WARNING in sendmail is about sendmail.cw not configured.