My problem with sendmail 8.11.6-15 is that I can receive mail but not send out. I tried sending out a mail to a hotmail account, but the connection to mx1.hotmail.com always timeout.

#host -t mx hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled by 5 mx4.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled by 5 mx1.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled by 5 mx2.hotmail.com
hotmail.com mail is handled by 5 mx3.hotmail.com

but when i ping the mail servers:

#ping mx4.hotmail.com
PING mx4.hotmail.com (65.54.254.151) from 192.168.1.205 : 56(84) bytes of data

then i don't get any response. I can ping yahoo. I tried sending another mail to an @iname.com account. Again, that failed.

The mail log that I get is:
Aug 22 08:42:45 HelloKitty sendmail[30374]: h7M0Wj830371: to=violawong@iname.com, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=00:10:00, xdelay=00:10:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=30079, relay=iname-com-bk.mr.outblaze.com. [205.158.62.72], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection timed out with iname-com-bk.mr.outblaze.com.
Aug 22 08:43:09 HelloKitty sendmail[30454]: h7M0N6e30243: to=violawong@iname.com, ctladdr=viola (503/503), delay=00:20:03, xdelay=00:10:01, mailer=esmtp, pri=120057, relay=iname-com-bk.mr.outblaze.com. [205.158.62.24], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection timed out with iname-com-bk.mr.outblaze.com.
Aug 22 08:43:10 HelloKitty sendmail[30454]: h7M0Wj830371: to=violawong@iname.com, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=00:10:25, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=120079, relay=iname-com-bk.mr.outblaze.com., dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection timed out with iname-com-bk.mr.outblaze.com.
Aug 22 08:44:42 HelloKitty sendmail[30476]: h7LGYns28929: to=<violayywong@hotmail.com>, ctladdr=<viola@wongz.com> (503/503), delay=08:09:53, xdelay=00:10:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=754652, relay=mx2.hotmail.com. [65.54.252.230], dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection timed out with mx2.hotmail.com.

My mail server setting:
#host -t mx wongz.com
wongz.com mail is handled by 5 mail.wongz.com

On the DNS server, mail.wongz.com is point to wongz.com

I'm not sure if it's a problem with my hostname setting. My hostname was HelloKitty. It always give me the error message that this is an unqualified domain name. Therefore, I changed the hostname by doing the following:

Type "hostname mail.wongz.com"
changed the hostname in "/etc/hosts"
changed the hostname in "/etc/sysconfig/network"

I obtain my IP via dhcp. Is that all I need to do to change the hostname? After changing the hostname, I got the following results.

#hostname
mail.wongz.com

#domainname
(none)

Is the above correct?

Finally, I need to add my ISP domain name in access.db as a RELAY in order to send mail. Why is that the case? If I'm connecting to mail.wongz.com to send mail directly, it shouldn't be acting as a RELAY AGENT? Please kindly explain the functino of th relay.

many many thanks!

The Sendmail program only sends mail. I have been through this exercise of trying to configure Sendmail for a dial-up ppp account and it is a little tricky. I'll bet the configuration file that you're using now is for networked computers that have real addresses. So when Sendmail sends out your messages it will look like it's coming from a phony address, so will be rejected by the other mail transfer programs out there on the Internet. The Sendmail.cf file has to be customized to make it work right.

Since the sendmail.cf file is very complicated they have graciously provided another program to generate this file but it's still not a cake-walk. You edit the sendmail.mc file instead.

In the end I just gave up. That's why I'm the oldest newbie on the list. Good luck to you.

Please check whether your port 25 OUT is being blocked - either by your own firewall or by your ISP.

Try

# telnet <somemailserver> 25

This would help you understand what is going on.

If you get some response like

Connected to <somemailserver>
Escape character is '^]'.
220 blah blah...

this means you are able to initiate connections to mailservers on port 25.
If you indeed get connected, you can type QUIT to terminate the connection.

I can connect to port 25 no problem:

[root@mail root]# telnet wongz.com 25
Trying 218.102.127.104...
Connected to wongz.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 HelloKitty ESMTP Sendmail 8.11.6/8.11.6; Fri, 22 Aug 2003 16:09:36 +0800

I have also used it to send mail locally and that's no problem. Only problem is I can send mail to external email accounts on the net. Please help! Thanks!

can you connect to, say

# telnet mx4.hotmail.com 25

for example

Hi ppuru,

I cannot telnet to mx4.hotmail.com 25. Could it be a firewall issue on my Linux server? Could some filter be enabled by default? I'm running Red Hat 7.

Also, is my hostname setting correct? What do I need to do if I need to change the hostname?

Finally, could you please give me some tips on setting on the access file, ie. the RELAYS!

thanks a lot!

Check whether you have any filters that are blocking the smtp traffic

check with

iptables -nvL

OR

ipchains -nL

To turn off the firewall (filters)

# service ipchains stop

OR

# service iptables stop

After stopping the firewall (not a good idea), you can try connecting to one of the external mail servers.

Check out this HowTo

http://www.sendmail.org/~ca/email/offline_mailing.html

Hi ppuru,

I have tried turning off the ip filters but still can't connect to mx4.hotmail.com. I found out sth strange...

If I telnet to mx4.hotmail.com (default port 23), it connects to 65.54.253.230. However, if I telnet to port 25, it connects to a different IP... 65.54.254.151. Is this normal?

Any other suggestions?

Hi harrygraham,

Thanks for the doc, however, I'm not using dial up, but using DSL. I'm connected to the internet all the time. Thanks!

Vittibaby

You may be connected to the Internet all the time, but unless you have a bona fide host name, your header files still need to be rewritten. Red Hat caters to the Big Boys who are using Sendmail to manage hundreds of E-mail accounts on a fully qualified domain. If your mail goes from your home computer looking like jsmith@localhost.localdomain then it won't get through. Sendmail is not an easy, intuitive program. It may be better to download the latest Mozilla Mail which will do the rewriting of the header files for you without all the reconfiguring. If Mozilla Mail works, then you will know that it's not your firewall, ports etc.

Harry