Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix,comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Sendmail: "I refuse to talk to myself"
From: bcs@terra.cs.waikato.ac.nz (Brent Summers)
Date: 29 Jan 1993 17:21:27 +1300
Distribution: world
Organization: Comp Sci, U of Waikato, New Zealand
NNTP-Posting-Host: jupiter.cs.waikato.ac.nz

Greetings all,

I'm *not* an ultrix user, but I've some experience with sendmail, so I've
been asked to try to help these people.  They have what their kernel config
file describes as a DS5000_300, which I take to be a DECstation5000 series
machine (never seen it), running Ultrix 4.2.  They are running named, and
the shipped version of sendmail, with a pretty-okay-as-far-as-I-can-tell
sendmail.cf file.

They have two problems:

1.  Outgoing mail gets a From: header of the form user@host instead of
user@host.domain... when it is bound for other domains.

2.  Incoming mail gets rejected with a facinating error message.  Following
is the mungement I get when I try to send to them (brains.isis.co.nz) from
my site (*.cs.waikato.ac.nz).  See the "I refuse to talk to myself"?

-------------------------------- cut here ------------------------------
Return-Path: @brains.isis.co.nz:MAILER-DAEMON@ns.netway.co.nz
Return-Path: <@brains.isis.co.nz:MAILER-DAEMON@ns.netway.co.nz>
Received: from grace.waikato.ac.nz by jupiter.cs.waikato.ac.nz (4.1/SMI-4.1)
	id AA02825; Tue, 26 Jan 93 17:10:43 NZD
Received: from netway.co.nz by waikato.ac.nz; Tue, 26 Jan 93 17:20 +1300
Received: from brains.isis.co.nz by ns.netway.co.nz id aa00827; Tue, 26 Jan 93
 17:22:07 NZST
Received: by brains.isis.co.nz (5.57/Ultrix3.0-C) id AB06728; Tue, 26 Jan 93
 17:25:46 +1300
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 17:25:46 +1300
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON@brains>
Subject: Returned mail: Service unavailable
To: bcs@jupiter.cs.waikato.ac.nz
Message-Id: <9301260425.AB06728@brains.isis.co.nz>
Mmdf-Warning:  Parse error in original version of preceding line at netway.co.nz

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
>>> HELO brains.isis.co.nz
<<< 553 brains.isis.co.nz I refuse to talk to myself
554 <benm@brains.isis.co.nz>... Service unavailable: Bad file number

   ----- Unsent message follows -----
Received: by brains.isis.co.nz (5.57/Ultrix3.0-C)
	id AA06221; Tue, 26 Jan 93 16:43:58 +1300
Received: from sol.cs.waikato.ac.nz by waikato.ac.nz; Tue, 26 Jan 93 16:38 +1300
Received: from jupiter.cs.waikato.ac.nz by sol.cs.waikato.ac.nz (4.1/SMI-4.1)
 id AA09983; Tue, 26 Jan 93 16:39:28 NZD
Received: from localhost by jupiter.cs.waikato.ac.nz (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02801;
 Tue, 26 Jan 93 16:28:15 NZD
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 16:28:15 +1300
From: "Brent C. Summers" <bcs@jupiter.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
Subject: Gotta go
To: benm@brains
Message-Id: <9301260328.AA02801@jupiter.cs.waikato.ac.nz>
------------------------------- cut here ------------------------------

Like I said, I can't see much wrong with their sendmail config (at least I
didn't post it 8-), oh and there don't appear to be any MX records for
brains or it's domain in the local DNS tables - at least nslookup off
localhost doesn't return any.

Obviously, a detailed explanation of their setup is tricky.  I'm down to
hoping that someone has seen this message before, and can tell me why
sendmail appears to be relaying the mail to itself.

Replies by email puh-leez,  I don't read here normally.  I *will* post a
summary if there is interest.

-- 
+-Brent Summers, U of Waikato, NZ------------------------------------------+
|   Programming:  Navigating through an infinity of programs in search of  |
|   one of a much smaller infinity of reasonable solutions.  Blindfolded.  |
+--------------------------------------------------------bcs@waikato.ac.nz-+