Sendmail: only local domain recipients can reach target

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

Hi everyone,
I've an hpux11iv1 box and I need to send mails to several address both in local domain and extra domain.
I can send mail only to local domain recipients and the extra domain recipients remain in deferred status.
I can resolve this?

Regards...
PSS

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom PSS,

How to do this depends on your network structure.

You need to identify an appropriate server to relay your mail. Network administration should be able to help.

vi /etc/mail/sendmail.cf

Change:

DS

to:

DShostnameofrelayserver

or:

DS
[ip address of relay server]

example:
DS
[192.168.0.10]

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

If sendmail is not running (check /etc/rc.config.d/sendmail) then there is no need to restart or run the daemon.

It is not normally needed to have the daemon running to send outbound mail, though perversely I've got knowlege of setups that do require this.

SEP

[Steven E. Protter]

I forgot,

diagnostic

sendmail -v -d8.99 -d38.99 someone@yahoo.com

type some text

.


You will see full diagnostics, more extensive than available in /var/adm/syslog/mail.log

SEP

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

no way.
Only local domain recipients can go away.
Sendmail tries to resolv the recipient domain using DNS but DNS cannot resolv external domains

[RAC_1]

How does your /etc/nsswich.conf look like? If you are using /etc/hosts file for host name resolution, then the entry for hosts should look as follows. (dns after files)

hosts : file dns

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

the hpux box cannot resolve external domain addresses the smtp server can resolve it.
Is it possible to configure sendmail to let the smtp server resolv the recipient address?

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

this is nsswitch.conf

hosts: files [NOTFOUND=continue UNAVAIL=continue TRYAGAIN=return] dns

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

any suggestion?

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

HELP ME!!!

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

Only localdomain mail can go away

[spex]

PSS,

Your HP-UX box cannot resolve the IP address of your mail relay from its hostname. One of the following should work:

1) Add a line for the mail relay to /etc/hosts, ensure /etc/mail/sendmail.cf contains DShostname, and stop/start the sendmail daemon.

2) Add the IP address of your mail relay to /etc/mail/sendmail.cf like:

DS
[ip.add.ress.here]

then stop/start the sendmail daemon.

3) Ensure that your mail relay is not blocking connections from your HP-UX box. For information on how to do this, see:

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1037478


PCS

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom again,

Either talk to networking for a list of servers for /etc/resolv.conf that work or implement the DS directive.

Either should solve this problem.

SEP

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

Spex,
I've done but the external mail still remains in deferred status

Steven,
the dns server in /etc/resolv.conf can solve only localdomain addresses

[spex]

PSS,

Restart sendmail:

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

Clear your mail queue:

# rm -f /var/spool/mqueue/*

And try sending a fresh test message.

What do you mean by "external mail still remains in deferred status"? Do messages reach your mail relay and hang at that point?

PCS

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

This is the message that appears in mailq after sending an external domain mail:
SAA00633* (no control file)

The mail never reaches the SMTP server

[PSS SYS ADMIN]

I still have the problem:
Only the localdomain mail can reach the smtp server