Hi, I'm trying to set up my first mail server. I have installed fedora core 6 and was able to send mail outside to the internet through sendmail. Now, I am trying to send mail to another computer in my lan. If I could setup two domains (one on each computer) and set a lab where I can send email to each other. I'm just wondering if this is feasible though? Do I need to configure a DNS server before I continue? What are you thoughts?

if it both of your computers are on a local network, you have to mod your hosts file to make sure that mail is going to be delivered to correct MX, otherwise it will try to go out to your default NS and try to get addr for it from there.

I'm confused with the MX record that sendmail uses when sending mail to another domain. Do I just edit the /etc/host file put the IP of the second machine and the domain. Or do I need to make changes to the default sendmail.mc file?

just edit hosts file, you dont need to edit anything in your sendmail cfg

I'm still unable to sendmail. I changed the /etc/hosts file. I can ping the my test domain "plain.1a2b3c.com" but when I type in "host plain.1a2b3cttyy.com". I get this output error "host plain.1a2b3c.com not found: 3 (NXDOMAIN)"

my logs shows:

Oct 2 22:09:27 localhost sendmail[2105]: l8UEUNSl025879: to=<UserB@plain.1a2b3c.com>, ctladdr=<userA@localhost.localdomain> (500/500), delay=2+11:39:04, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=1380345, relay=plain.1a2b3.com., dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by plain.1a2b3c.com.


Oct 2 22:09:27 localhost sendmail[2105]: l8UESYF4025860: to=<UserB@plain.1a2b3c.com>, ctladdr=<userA@localhost.localdomain> (500/500), delay=2+11:40:53, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=1380345, relay=plain.1a2b3.com., dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by plain.1a2b3c.com>, ctladdr=<userA@localhost.localdomain> (500/500), delay=2+11:40:53, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=1380345, relay=plain.1a2b3c.com., dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection refused by plain.1a2b3c.com.