Hi all,

I have an RH 8 box that is the DNS, samba, DHCP, etc server for a network of otherwise Windows machines. The Linux server has a hostname of goliath and is also my internet gateway. I have everything running axectly as I want it, except sendmail. My other networked machines are all running Outlook ot Outlook Express, but none of them can connect to the mail server. Sendmail is RUNNING fine on the box, but I have obviously configured it wrong. I really need to get this working ASAP, because without e-mail access, I am dead in the water! I know very little about sendmail, but I am learning it. I wonder if any of you could help me setup sendmail. What about all the other files in the /etc/mail directory like access, mailertable, etc... I need to ensure I have everything correct (which I obviously don't). Could someone please help me out? I just need to get this working asap. Thanks a million!

Chris

PS. The error I get from Outlook is:


Task 'goliath - Sending and Receiving' reported error (0x80042109) : 'Outlook is unable to connect to your outgoing (SMTP) e-mail server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).'

I think that this was the same error I got. You have to have a pop3 deamon running along with sendmail. If you have a port scanner like nmap, then do a scan and see if you have pop3 and smtp running. If they are not running start them. Also I think that send mail email addresses defalt to username@servername.mydomain.com.

I dunno if I have a pop3 daemon running. In the /etc/xinetd.d/ipop3 file, I set the "disabled = yes" setting to "no" and restarted the xinetd service. That didn't change anything. Apparentley, I have nmap, but I have never used it. Could you let me know what the command would be to do what you want me to do? Thx.

Chris

Type nmap <sever's ip number> at the command line. Also you should have a control panel like app that has a services icon. That is an easy way to start and set the startup time of the deamons.

# nmap localhost


that should do the trick

tangle beat me to it..lol

Thanks, Fellas... Ok, pop3 and smtp are both on open ports according to nmap. What next can you think of that I might be missing in sendmail. I REALLY need to get this working, so if you can help, please do! Thanks!!

Chris

Did you try changing the email address in outlook to <username>@<mail server name>.<domain name>.com. Sendmail defaults to putting the sever name in front of the domain name. Don't know why, but it does.

Nah, I haven't tried that, but to tell you the truth, I don't want to. I had this running in the past and I didn't have to do that. There must be something in sendmail that I can play with so I won't have to do that.

Chris

No I did not mean to keep it that way. There is a place in the config file that you can change. I meant just to it to see if it works. That way you know if it is working.

Ok, I've played around with a few things and so far as to get this error message from Outlook:


Task 'goliath - Sending' reported error (0x800CCC78) : 'Unable to send the message. Please verify the e-mail address in your account properties. The server responded: 451 4.1.8 Domain of sender address chris@bartlett-family.net does not resolve'

Things seem to be working a little better, but I am still working on it. Can anyone tell me what I might need to do to get sendmail working completely? Thanks a million!

Chris

It seems to me that there is obviously a problem with how sendmail is interacting with DNS, but I don't even know where to start looking! Also, the really weird thing is that if I don't have any mail to SEND from Outlook, the whole send/recieve process says "Completed" just fine! What's going on! My domain is bartlett-family.net, and I noticed that in my sendmail.cf file, there is NO instance of "bartlett-family" anywhere. HELP!!

Ok - run through these checkpoints for starters.
1) Is bartlett-family.net in the "/etc/hosts" file?
2) Is bartlett-family.net in the "/etc/mail/local-host-names" file?

If there is still a problem then try adding these 2 lines:
MASQUERADE_AS(bartlett-family.net)
MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(bartlett-family.net)

to the bottom of sendmail.mc then convert to sendmail.cf

Cheers for the Affero! - Don't forget to restart sendmail:
service sendmail restart

David, thank you very much. I will try all that when I finish dinner and then bathe my son. Give me about an hour and a half total and I will try that. Some of the things you mentioned I do not have so that might be it. I will let you know. As soon as I take some care of some things professionally, you will see a lot more than just a comment in your Affero. You are the man and deserve all I can provide. Thank you!

Chris

David,

Ok, I did what you said, and good news!!!! It's "sort of" working. What I mean is this:

I have sent several test e-mails from my e-mail address (chris@bartlett-family.net) to my Yahoo! address, and they have gotten there!!!

However, I have sent several test e-mails FROM my Yahoo! address to chris@bartlett-family.net over the last few hours, and NONE of them have made it. I can't thank you enough for your help thus far, but can I pick your brain about that issue? Hope all is well!

Chris

PS. Also, the whole process in Outlook of sending/recieving e-mail does seem to go very slow now. The status bar bounces up to 100%, even though no e-mail actually gets sent (because it's still in my outbox). Then, it drops back to 66%, then finally sends the e-mail and completes. Do you know why this may be also?

PPS. I can send AND recieve e-mail INSIDE my home network, in other words: chris@bartlett-family.net can send an e-mail to sokhan@bartlett-family.net, sokhan can reply, and everything gets delivered just fine. Mail coming from outside the network doesn't seem to be getting through.