Help with smart host please

[Kevin Miller]

Not sure I was clear, but when I said "My MS machine catches all mail for my
domain" I meant that it gets the mail, then forwards it to our internal
server, similar to what you're doing.  Guess it was a case of my fingers not
working as fast as my thoughts...

...Kevin
-------------------
Kevin Miller                Registered Linux User No: 307357
CBJ MIS Dept.               Network Systems Administrator, Mail
Administrator
155 South Seward Street     ph: (907) 586-0242
Juneau, Alaska 99801        fax: (907 586-4500


>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kevin Miller
>Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 12:41 PM
>To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
>Subject: Re: Help with smart host please
>
>
>Ah.  In my setup, I'm not using smarthost, but I notice one
>thing on yours.
>You say:
>  # "Smart" relay host (may be null)
>  DStalia.elknet.net
>with no white space between the DS and the domain name.  I
>don't know if you
>need white space there or not, but maybe that's what's hosing it?
>
>My MS machine catches all mail for my domain and also acts as
>a secondary
>for another couple of domains.  I use mailertable with entries
>such as the
>following:
>
>  ci.juneau.ak.us         esmtp:[192.168.55.120]
>  etc...
>
>Also, in my relay-domains table I have:
>  ci.juneau.ak.us
>  mail.ci.juneau.ak.us
>  etc...
>
>A post a couple days ago said this: "I'm not sure if this is
>what you were
>talking about, but with the sendmail mailertable, you can list the
>destination via IP address.  If you want the mailertable to send to the
>specified server regardless of it's MX record, you can put the
>destination
>address in [] brackets to avoid MX lookups."
>
>If you use mailertable you'll have to turn it on in
>sendmail.cf, and be sure
>to do the "makemap hash mailertable < mailertable" routine so
>that it gets
>compiled into the db.
>
>Hope that all makes sense and helps...
>
>...Kevin
>-------------------
>Kevin Miller                Registered Linux User No: 307357
>CBJ MIS Dept.               Network Systems Administrator, Mail
>Administrator
>155 South Seward Street     ph: (907) 586-0242
>Juneau, Alaska 99801        fax: (907 586-4500
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Alan Fiebig [mailto:mailscanner at ELKNET.NET]
>>Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 1:12 PM
>>To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
>>Subject: Re: Help with smart host please
>>
>>
>>No, sorry, I should have been clearer.
>>
>>Its not that my MS server is timing out on DNS lookups of my
>>smarthost, its that sendmail on my MS server is still
>>bothering to lookup the final destination.
>>
>>
>>For example, lets say that I have a message in
>>/var/spool/mqueue that is to be delivered to
>>'sam at cucumber.org'. As I have sendmail on my MS server
>>configured to use a smarthost, sendmail should then just
>>blindly forward that message to the smarthost
>>(talia.elknet.net) and let the smarthost firgure out how to
>>get the message to the 'cucumber.org' smtp server.
>>
>>But, that's not what's happening. Sendmail on my MS server
>>instead is bothering to do a DNS lookup on 'cucumber.org'
>>BEFORE sending it on to the smarthost. If the DNS lookup fails
>>or timesout, then sendmail deferrs the delivery to the
>>smarthost and keeps the message in the queue. Sendmail WILL
>>NOT forward the message on to the smarthost until AFTER it has
>>successfully looked up the destination domain, then it sends
>>it on to the smarthost.
>>
>>When using a smarthost, my outbound queue should be virtually
>>empty. MS should place a message into the mqueue, and within
>>seconds sendmail should grab it and send it on to the
>>smarthost. But that's not happening, instead, only the message
>>that snedmail successfully does a DNS lookup on are being
>>forwarded, the rest are sitting in the queue deferred until a
>>future time, when sendmail will again try and do a DNS lookup.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>-Alan
>>
>>
>>>I'm probably missing something here, but I'd just add the
>>smarthost to the
>>>DNS if you're timing out.  Wouldn't that do it?
>>>
>>>...Kevin
>>
>