sendmail -(aaarrGGG!)

[Tim Howell]

I have searched the forums, experimented, and read HP's guide to mailing services and am more confused than ever. I have an 11i server (rp5470), with sendmail configured and running 'out of the box' (default HP config). I can of course email users on the local server. But, I want to email reports to specific users that are on the same network but use Windows/Lotus Notes (if that matters). I have the IP of the mail server in our building that is connected to the internet. However I do not use DNS (and do not wish to). So: A) can this be done. B) how do I do it?
TIA

[Mel Burslan]

It certainly is doable but needs assistance from the Lotus Notes mail server admins as they are the decision makers about to deliver or reject your messages. Best way to do it is to use the Lotus Mail server as your Smart Mail Relay. For this,

edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf

look for a line satrting with caharacters

DS

and change it to

DSmailserver

I know you do not want to use the names. I think ip address will also work butif it does not, you can map the IP to the name using the /etc/hosts file, not using the DNS at all.

You will need to let the mail admins know that you are going to pass mail to be delivered to their subscribers from a unix server and they need to accept mail from your server name and/or ip address.

Hope this helps

[Rick Garland]

Use the DS directive as described. If you are properly resolving you can use short names as well as the long names (FQDN). IP addresses are acceptable.

The Lotus Notes will need to be configured to accpt mail from the server. A lot of times they look at the envelope to decide to accept or reject the mail.

[Tim Howell]

Thanks for the prompt replies! It seems I did everything except consult with the notes admins (oooppppps). I didn't think about them blocking it etc. I will leave this open and assign points later as it will be next week before I can get hold of them.


Thanks again.

[Mel Burslan]

Tim,
This is usually the case. We send mail out to intr-company exchange addresses as well as to the internet to get paged via skytel, and all our routing is done via exchange servers hence thru their admins. And if we do not let them know that we added a new server which needs mail relaying, they don't go until the cows come home. The default behavior of the corporate mail servers is deny all delivery unless proven to be from a known source, thanks to the hostile email environment on the internet today.

Good luck to you.

[Seth Parker]

Tim,

I've got a setup similar to what you're describing (but we're not using Notes). Set up your sendmail.cf as described by the other messages and it'll work great. One thing you might think about configuring your /etc/mail/service.switch and /etc/nsswitch.conf files so that they look at your hosts file before they try DNS.

For the /etc/mail/service.switch file, just put "hosts " in front of the line containing "dns". Do the same for the /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

What this will do is to allow you to use aliases you set up in the hosts file instead of IP adresses.

Regards,
Seth

[Tim Nelson]

There is a way to disable sendmail from using DNS. This way you can just put an entry in the /etc/hosts file.

Try the following.
In the area of the sendmail.cf file as listed below. Insert a 0 (zero) in front of the equation as shown

#####################################
### SMTP Mailer specification ###
#####################################

##### @(#)smtp.m4 8.33 (Berkeley) 7/9/96 #####
# Insert 0 after F= to disable mail DNS lookups
Msmtp, P=[IPC], F=0mDFMuX, S=11/31, R=21, E=\r\n, L=990,
T=DNS/RFC822/SMTP,
A=IPC $h
Mesmtp, P=[IPC], F=0mDFMuXa, S=11/31, R=21, E=\r\n, L=990,
T=DNS/RFC822/SMTP,
A=IPC $h
Msmtp8, P=[IPC], F=0mDFMuX8, S=11/31, R=21, E=\r\n, L=990,
T=DNS/RFC822/SMTP,
A=IPC $h
Mrelay, P=[IPC], F=0mDFMuXa8, S=11/31, R=61, E=\r\n, L=2040,
T=DNS/RFC822/SMTP,
A=IPC $h

[Steven E. Protter]

There has been a major update to sendmail that was ported to HP-UX. It has security enhancements and you might wish to upgrade.

http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=SMAIL813

sendmail needs DNS to resolve hostnames and deliver mail.

The alternative is to use a relay server

in sendmail.cf

DShostnameofrelay

or

DS
[ip address of relay]

save the file

/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop
/sbin/init.d/sendmail start

Note the relay server must explicity allow mail relay from your HP-UX server for this to work.

Many firewalls have smtp relay servers that allow you to send mail in this manner.

Note also, that if you HP-UX server does not have a fully qualified domain name that can be looked up by DNS on the public Internet, mail systems such as aol, and my own will refuse to accept the mail.

SEP

[Tim Nelson]

FYI, on the FQDN lookups verifications, you can set masquerading up and / or use relay.

DM macro. Set it to your real domain, if your servers domains are not shown to the world via DNS.

i.e.
for server myserver.subdomain.mycompany.com
DM mycompany.com

[Tim Howell]

Sorry, for the delay in responding. I have tried the suggestions, which seem very good, but I am still having trouble. Maybe I am missing something more elementary(?).

The Notes admin says that I am not even getting mail to his server for him to reject or not. (I can still send mail to users on this server) Here is the mail log results from my end when I try to send mail: (names changed to protect the innocent)

Sep 8 08:32:24 scmh2 sendmail[16039]: unable to qualify my own domain name (scmh2) -- using short name
Sep 8 08:32:24 scmh2 sendmail[16039]: be sure to set domain name in Dj macro in sendmail.cf
Sep 8 08:32:24 scmh2 sendmail[16039]: IAA16039: to=thy.well@rrd.com, delay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, relay=spscmail, stat=Transient parse error -- message queued for future delivery
Sep 8 08:32:24 scmh2 sendmail[16039]: IAA16039: from=howee0sp, size=242, class=0, pri=30242, nrcpts=1, msgid=<200509081232.IAA16039@scmh2.rrd.com>, relay=root@localhost
Sep 8 08:32:24 scmh2 sendmail[16039]: IAA16039: to=thy.well@rrd.com, delay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, stat=queued

[Gavin Clarke]

Tim, I agree sendmail is aaaarrGGG!

What seems to work for us is:

DSmailserver (in /etc/mail/sendmail.cf)

entry for mailserver in /etc/hosts

/etc/resolv.conf that looks like:

domain domain.name.com
nameserver IP
nameserver IP


/etc/nsswitch.conf that has an entry:

hosts: files [NOTFOUND=continue] dns


I think I stopped and started sendmail as per SEP.

I hope this helps you. I think that there might be more to do if you want to mail out of your domain, I think relaying has to be allowed on the Notes server.

[Geoff Wild]

Please post output of:

sendmail -v YOU@YOURDOMAIN.COM
where YOU@YOURDOMAIN.COM is your Internet email address for your company.

All I set in sendmail.cf is:

DMmydomain.com

DSmyexchangeserver

And it works...

Without DNS - you need the ip's in /etc/hosts as well as set the Dj macro in sendmail.cf

Rgds...Geoff

[Tim Howell]

Finally success! Thanks to all!!! A combination of those awarded 7 points contained what I needed. (the Notes admin to allow it, and the setup of nsswitch.conf) The nsswitch.conf did not exist until I used sam to create it. But somewhere along the way I had masquerading set. When I unset it, the mail went though!
Thanks again!