[SOLVED] Sendmail -- What Did I Forget?

volkerdi · 07-08-2013, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zhjim

Hm. Does slackware has some options for labtop installs? I know in Debian theres an option for that. Also its more for energy saving and alike but maybe theres a silent com(on) give me more power. Just kidding. Long time ago I lost track of slack.

Why are you posting here?

tronayne · 07-08-2013, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zhjim

Hm. Does slackware has some options for labtop installs? I know in Debian theres an option for that. Also its more for energy saving and alike but maybe theres a silent com(on) give me more power. Just kidding. Long time ago I lost track of slack.

Maybe you can just copy the files of the desktop over to the labtop? At least that rules out any configurations. Also you would need to just host.conf and alike. Grub if installed also if you dont use the same uuid for the partitions.
Could you backup the /etc directory and diff it after the installation? Maybe this will shed some light.

Nope, no special stuff for a lap top; install and go. There are settings for power management and the like (in Xfce, KDE), but nothing special about a lap top versus a desk top or server or blade or whatever. Partitioning is done ahead of time with cfdisk or fdisk (for those that love to type), nothing special (and all my machines are partitioned pretty much identically, although some are mounts of drives other than /sdax). What I will do is diff /etc from one to the other (which are identical in any event -- I use fixed-IP addressing and all systems are listed in every /etc/hosts. The one difference will be /etc/rc.d/rc.init1.conf where the local machine is set; lilo.conf is identical, everybody boots from /sda1.

Really goofy, this condition. Don't have a clue (yet).

Thanks for the input.

volkerdi · 07-08-2013, 04:21 PM

While it should "just work", for some reason it isn't. You might be able to work around it by specifying your relay in sendmail.cf, though:

Code:

# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
DSpita.com

It might be related to this:

Quote:

hostname -d: com

Here, I get these results:

Quote:

hostname: hive64
hostname -d: slackware.lan

Perhaps things would go better if your machine's full hostname wasn't just the domain name.

zhjim · 07-09-2013, 03:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi

Why are you posting here?

Cause I want to help. Also despite me knowledge of sendmail.

Richard Cranium · 07-09-2013, 03:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zhjim

Cause I want to help. Also despite me knowledge of sendmail.

There's nobody in the Debian universe that needs help?

I work with RedHat as part of the Day Job(TM) but I feel no need to tool over to that forum to offer my advice about, well, anything. That's mainly because my advice would be almost invariably wrong due to my shallow knowledge of how things work in that Linux distribution.

zhjim · 07-09-2013, 04:02 AM

Might be that I like to learn some more. Or see how slackware developed or just cause i like to piss of people. And also cause somethings are common to all linux derivates like hostname or domainnames.

tronayne · 07-09-2013, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi

While it should "just work", for some reason it isn't. You might be able to work around it by specifying your relay in sendmail.cf, though:

Perhaps things would go better if your machine's full hostname wasn't just the domain name.

Thanks for that; what I get is

Code:

hostname
pita
hostname -d
com

I tried editing /etc/sendmail.cf:

Code:

# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
DSpita.com

which was NULL (as are all my systems).

By the way, this does look like I think it should:

Code:

/etc/rc.d/rc.sendmail stop
/etc/rc.d/rc.sendmail start
Starting sendmail MTA daemon:  /usr/sbin/sendmail -L sm-mta -bd -q25m
Starting sendmail MSP queue runner:  /usr/sbin/sendmail -L sm-msp-queue -Ac -q25m

but I'm not positive about that.

So, logged in as root,

Code:

mailx -s "Test Message" trona
This is a test message.
EOT
tail /var/log/maillog
 .
 .
 .
Jul  9 10:04:45 pita sendmail[2894]: r69E4hFd002894: to=trona, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=00:00:02, xdelay=00:00:02, mailer=relay, pri=30227, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (r69E4hRE002895 Message accepted for delivery)
Jul  9 10:05:01 pita sm-mta[2898]: r69E4hRE002895: to=<trona@pita.com>, delay=00:00:16, xdelay=00:00:16, mailer=esmtp, pri=120436, relay=pita.com.com. [216.239.120.238], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by pita.com.com.

Looking at your post, where the box is slackware.lan looks like a good idea -- I've just used .com since forever (even though there are actual web sites with the names I use) simply... because. Think I'll change 'em to .lan.

One other thing, that I don't think has anything to do with anything, is that my only Internet access is via HughesNet; there's no wireless, no DSL, no cable, no fiber optic -- dial-up or HugesNet, that's it. HughesNet does not issue fixed-IP addresses and the interface does not allow the outside world to come in. The guy is coming this afternoon to install the G4 upgrade (which will take me from 150K-300K to 10Mbs, which is roughly 12.5MB, which is a heckuva lot faster, but still no outside access). I do all mail with gmail.com.

Also, as far as I can tell, my FQDN is simply .com? And, SSH between all systems works just fine (so the /etc/hosts entries appear to be "in charge" and there's no DNS involved?

So, I'm thinking reinstall 14.0, apply the patches and see what's what. I can't think of anything else to do.

Thanks for the input.

zhjim · 07-09-2013, 09:44 AM

A FQDN is hostname [dot] tld [dot]. The dot at the end is important. At least according to the RFC's. Also most installers are happy with just the hostname[dot]tld.
Coming from my question for hostname -f your FQDN is "pita.com". The manpage of hostname has some explanations and caveats how hostname returns the fqdn. See that for more info.

As I said I'm not so deep into sendmail so i best get out of the way and let the known sort that.

jostber · 07-09-2013, 05:44 PM

Could you try to enter this into your /etc/hosts file?

127.0.0.1 pita pita.com.

Then restart the network service:

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart

tronayne · 07-09-2013, 05:52 PM

Uh, nope, don't think so, that's the address of localhost (not to be fiddled with, methinks).

Thanks, though.

volkerdi · 07-09-2013, 06:06 PM

I think the fix might be to use a hostname like somehost.pita.lan, where the hostname will be seen as "somehost" and the domain name as "pita.lan". I've never deployed a machine that had only a domain name (or a domain name of just .com). With slackware.com, for example, the actual machine has a longer hostname (connie.slackware.com) and reaching it via "slackware.com" is done with a CNAME in DNS. I think that might be what is confusing sendmail, since here it works out of the box on hive64.slackware.lan.

jostber · 07-10-2013, 05:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jostber

Could you try to enter this into your /etc/hosts file?

127.0.0.1 pita pita.com.

Then restart the network service:

/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 restart

Sorry, that should be:

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.1.30 pita pita.com.

zhjim · 07-10-2013, 09:41 AM

After installing a minimal slackware 14 system with your hostname (pita) and domainname (com) I could send mail with mail -s "This is a testmail" trona after adding the user. Which got delivered and sits inside the mailbox now.

What differs in my log line from your log line that sendmail uses the local mailer and not the esmtp. relay is 127.0.0.1 which sounds okay.

Code:

Jul 10 16:24:50 pita sendmail[1704]: r6AEOoL0001704: from=root, size=230, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<201307101424.r6AEOoL0001704@pita.com>, relay=root@localhost
Jul 10 16:24:50 pita sm-mta[1705]: r6AEOoeb001705: from=<root@pita.com>, size=440, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<201307101424.r6AEOoL0001704@pita.com>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=localhost [127.0.0.1]
Jul 10 16:24:50 pita sendmail[1704]: r6AEOoL0001704: to=trona, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=30230, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (r6AEOoeb001705 Message accepted for delivery)

I'll attach some config files HTH

zhjim · 07-10-2013, 09:42 AM

and an empty post for another two files

tronayne · 07-11-2013, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by volkerdi

I think the fix might be to use a hostname like somehost.pita.lan, where the hostname will be seen as "somehost" and the domain name as "pita.lan". I've never deployed a machine that had only a domain name (or a domain name of just .com). With slackware.com, for example, the actual machine has a longer hostname (connie.slackware.com) and reaching it via "slackware.com" is done with a CNAME in DNS. I think that might be what is confusing sendmail, since here it works out of the box on hive64.slackware.lan.

Every day I learn how ignorant I can be. I've always just given a box a name, address and domain, made an entry in /etc/hosts and got on with it (they all talk to each other with SSH and life is good). Looks like it's time for a change and I'd really appreciate it if you could suggest a source for setting it up.

My little LAN can limp along as is but I've got a bigger system to do (I was in the Navy, ours, and learned the basic lesson about never volunteering, think I'd know better): couple of severs, five or more existing PC's, LAN connections for data entry and analysis, non-profit institute, lots of data, lots of volunteer users, long-term (like years if not decades and I will not live to see the end). Gotta do it right and it looks to me like what you're doing is the right approach -- I've just never done it and figure if I get my act together that I can repeat that, just need a little push in the right direction so I can figure out how to do it (as in: is there a how-to that I haven't been able to find yet?).

The original problem with sendmail I think has been eclipsed -- I am going to do a reinstall and step-by-step apply the patches (including the kernel) and see if I can find where it breaks. But, that may be moot if I can configure that box (and the rest of mine) as you suggest. I'm using that box to install and configure DSpace (not the simplest thing to put in what with the required software). I have looked at everything I can find that has anything to do with networking and sendmail and all of it has been untouched by patches or software installation as far as I can tell (the date stamps are distribution, diff doesn't show anything) but who knows what evil lurks here and there.

I really appreciate your input and thank you for taking the time and trouble.

Thomas