Can anyone help with this? I've gone around and around on this with limited success

Sendmail will send mail out but will not accept to an outside email address, it will accept mail from a local id (i.e. from root to a userid) but it will not accept email from an outside id.

I'm using RHE 5,
sendmail is 8.1.3

Once my email was bounced from an outside source, i took a look at my maillog and found the following:

Jun 5 04:02:10 chi-linux sendmail[664]: m5592A54000662: to=<root@chatam.chi-linux.net>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=120703, relay=localhost.localdomain. [127.0.0.1], dsn=5.3.5, stat=Local configuration error
Jun 5 04:02:10 chi-linux sendmail[664]: m5592A54000662: m5592A54000664: DSN: Local configuration error
Jun 5 04:02:10 chi-linux sendmail[664]: m5592A54000664: to=khizkey, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=61936, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
Jun 5 04:02:10 chi-linux sendmail[664]: m5592A54000664: to=<root@chatam.chi-linux.net>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=61936, relay=localhost.localdomain., dsn=5.3.5, stat=Local configuration error
Jun 5 04:02:10 chi-linux sendmail[664]: m5592A54000664: m5592A55000664: return to sender: Local configuration error
Jun 5 04:02:10 chi-linux sendmail[664]: m5592A55000664: to=khizkey, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=32960, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent
Jun 5 06:52:18 chi-linux sendmail[985]: m55BqGiZ000985: ruleset=check_rcpt, arg1=<ssmmttpp0509@yahoo.com.cn>, relay=219-84-253-102-adsl-tai.dynamic.so-net.net.tw [219.84.253.102], reject=550 5.7.1 <ssmmttpp0509@yahoo.com.cn>... Relaying denied
Jun 5 06:52:18 chi-linux sendmail[985]: m55BqGiZ000985: lost input channel from 219-84-253-102-adsl-tai.dynamic.so-net.net.tw [219.84.253.102] to MTA after rcpt

I set up my my MX record (at godaddy) as:
chi-linux.net MX 10 mail.chi-linux.net
and then created a A record for chi-linux.net that contained the ip address of the host.

my dns is setup as caching only (or so I think).

After working on this for several days, i'm not sure where the problem is.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks
Ray

Let me add that my linux box sits behind a NG router.
DHCP is turned of my box and an ip of (10.*) is setup in neat.
I also have opened ports 53 (dns) and 25 (smtp) are opened for the servre.

I am not sure if this is the problem. But try the following.
vi /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
look for a line like
O DaemonPortOptions=Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA
Comment that line (Add a # in the beginning). Restart sendmail.
Try a telnet <your-ip> 25. If you get connected, the above change has worked.

thanks.
I'll try to give it a try from another terminal.

Still no luck (had a major power outage while tyring to troubleshoot)

I tried the following:
1) I did a local telnet myhost.com 25
this worked and I was able to send an email
2) from another pc connected my NG router (using putty)
i did a telnet to ip.mymailserver.com port 25
I was able to send a text mail to a user on the system that arrived ok
3) I went to an outside webmail and tried to send an email to the mailserver
it never arrived and nothing showed up in the maillog

this is has me stumped, are there any other suggestions?
Thanks
Ray

Let me point out what I have done:
1) went thru and redid the configuration for my caching dns
2) re-visited my /etc/host file and gave a few tweeks
3) made sure I had my ISP nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf
4) checked my domain, MX, and IP with dig
I found one of the root servers has bad/corrupted info
5) did a telnet IP 25 and sent an email from a pc on the
network
its connected to the NG router but not directly to linux bx
6) sent emails (from the web) from another mailbox to users on
the linux box - got bounced with 4.4.1
7) went to http://www.mxtoolbox.com/diagnostic.aspx and did a
smtp check - it worked.

I did find from the maillog that relaying is denied. Perhaps this is the problem.

OK all I have one final question,

Does anyone think I could get sendmail working if I went CentOs or Fedora?

A couple of years ago I used RH8 or 9 not sure which but I was able to get sendmail up after a couple of days.

This has dragged on longer than needed (a couple of weeks now).

Any suggestions?
thanks
R