Hello,
Sorry for the late summary. The problem and the solution were very
simple: The "hostname" of this particular machine did not have the
domainname attached! I got lots of messages in
/var/adm/syslog.dated/xxx/mail.log like these:
Sep 21 14:56:12 xxxxxx sendmail[4003]: My unqualified host name
(xxxxxxx) unknown; sleeping for retry
So all sendmail calls like "newaliases" or "mqueue" appeared to hang.
So I've just added the domainname to the hostname in /etc/rc.config,
rebooted and everything works just fine. Even the plain "mailsetup"
generated sendmail.cf file works and forwards the mail to the
mail-gateway.
I did not need to confiure BIND or use a home-made sendmail, or
take a 2 week sendmail crash course :-). Nevertheless I've ordered
the "Sendmail" O'Reilly book which was recommended to me for situations
like these. amazon.de was able to deliver it in 2 business days. Great!
Thanks to the following people for their replies, which I'm appending
below followed by my original posting:
Joe Fletcher <joe_at_meng.ucl.ac.uk>
Jim Fitzmaurice <jpfitz_at_fnal.gov>
Sean O'Connell <sean_at_stat.Duke.EDU>
Trey Valenta <trey_at_ministry.eu.org>
Franz Fischer <Franz.Fischer_at_lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>
Kevin Strickland <kevin_at_msdc.com>
Jay Leafey <jay.leafey_at_mindless.com>
Special thanks for Franz Fischer who even sent me a sendmail version
compiled without DNS support.
Tom
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joe Fletcher <joe_at_meng.ucl.ac.uk>
Hi,
Can it be fixed by modifying /etc/svcorder.conf ?
Joe
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joe Fletcher <joe_at_meng.ucl.ac.uk>
> I've never heared of this file. I know only /etc/svc.conf which already
> contains all "local" statements as I've said in my posting.
Sorry, I'm being a ditz. There are two files, svc.conf and svcorder.
It was just a hunch that one of these might have needed adjusting.
Joe
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim Fitzmaurice <jpfitz_at_fnal.gov>
Tom,
You might want to get a book on "sendmail". I suggest the one from
O'Reilly, available from Amazon.com. You'll need it, it sounds like you may
need to modify your sendmail.cf file, not an easy task. The Compaq support
line might be able to help although you won't learn as much that way. (Hint:
Don't forget to save the original!)
Jim Fitzmaurice
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sean O'Connell <sean_at_stat.Duke.EDU>
Is there any reference to DNS in your sendmail.cf file? I think
that there is a way to disable dns lookups in sendmail 8.x.x.
If you are actually generating cf files from mc files, you can
add the FEATURE(nodns)dnl line to mc file.
Otherwise, I'd go around and remove all references to DNS in
the sendmail.cf file (in the delivery agent calls)...
S
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Trey Valenta <trey_at_ministry.eu.org>
You've probably been told this, but I think you need to recompile
sendmail without DNS support. check the sendmail faq's
(www.sendmail.org) for more information on this.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Franz Fischer <Franz.Fischer_at_lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>
Hi Thomas,
> The machine has no /etc/resolv.conf file and /etc/svc.conf has all "local"
> entries.
sendmail uses its own ``builtin'' resolver code and only more recent
sendmail versions (at least 8.8.x and higher) use a service switch file (on
DU /etc/svc.conf).
> Any ideas anyone? I've already searched the list archives without finding
> an answer to that.
In order to be absolutely shure that sendmail never performs any bind query,
it has to be compiled without the NAMED_BIND option (see src/conf.h and
src/README).
/etc/hosts should have a line for the local host with the fully qualified
domainname in order for sendmail to determine host and domainname. The
following is an excerpt of my homeboxes /etc/hosts file:
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Local entrie(s) for ofen (so that sendmail can determine the domainname)
# NOTE: The second form (FQDN ``canonical'') is recommended but in this
# setup not necessary!
129.187.151.33 ofen ofen.lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de ofenpass of fuorn
129.187.254.112 mailout mailout.lrz-muenchen.de
...
and sendmail -d0.4 -bt </dev/null outputs
Version 8.8.7
Compiled with: LOG MATCHGECOS MIME7TO8 MIME8TO7 NDBM NETINET NETUNIX
NEWDB QUEUE SCANF SMTP USERDB XDEBUG
canonical name: ofen.lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
a.k.a.: ofen
a.k.a.: ofen.lpr
a.k.a.: ofen.lpr.e-technik
UUCP nodename: ofen.lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
a.k.a.: ofen.lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
a.k.a.: ofenpass
a.k.a.: of
a.k.a.: fuorn
a.k.a.: [129.187.151.33]
a.k.a.: [127.0.0.1]
============ SYSTEM IDENTITY (after readcf) ============
(short domain name) $w = ofen
(canonical domain name) $j = ofen.lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
(subdomain name) $m = lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
(node name) $k = ofen.lpr.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de
========================================================
...
Ciao
\franz
PS: My old home box was a MIPS with RISCos 4.52, which came with
three versions of sendmail: sendmail_dns, sendmail_nodns and
sendmail_nis... but these good times seem to be over. :-(
PS^2: If you want a compiled copy of 8.8.7 w/o DNS just drop me a mail.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kevin Strickland <kevin_at_msdc.com>
I configured sendmail on Digital UNIX 4.0D system without DNS and with a
Linux box as a gateway.
I finally gave up on mailsetup and digital's version on sendmail.
I ended up installing sendmail 8.9.3 and using a m4 macro configuration
file.
Using the O'Reilly Sendmail 2nd Edition book as a guide, it was fairly
quick and easy to setup.
I have been able to painlessly add functionality to our sendmail after
making this change.
Kevin Strickland
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jay Leafey <jay.leafey_at_mindless.com>
Tom,
Try running "bindsetup" at the shell to configure the name service
client. It configures both the bind client and/or server for your system.
Good luck!
Jay
------------------ O R I G I N A L P O S T I N G ------------------
On Tue, 21 Sep 1999, Thomas Leitner wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> In a network without a DNS system (all static /etc/host entries on all
> machines) I want an Alpha running Tru64 4.0E to be able to send e-mails to
> the outside. Receiving e-mails from the outside is not necessary.
> There's a general mail-gateway in the network which can be reached from
> the Alpha without problems. The mail-gateway works without problems as I
> got Solaris boxes in the same network which can send mails via the
> mail-gateway without problems.
>
> The machine has no /etc/resolv.conf file and /etc/svc.conf has all "local"
> entries.
>
> I've added the mail-gateway name and IP address to /etc/hosts and tried to
> tell "mailsetup" to use it in some way. But apparently it still tries to
> resolve names via DNS, which is not possible.
>
> When sending an e-mail with "mailx", there's a "send-mail" process hanging
> around forever. The "mailq" command gets stuck and does not output
> anything.
>
> Any ideas anyone? I've already searched the list archives without finding
> an answer to that.
>
> Thanks // Tom
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Received on Fri Sep 24 1999 - 11:44:01 NZST