From: seidl@next1.lbl.gov (Peter Seidl)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.sysadmin
Subject: mail domains, subdomains
Date: 1 Sep 1992 00:54:25 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
Distribution: world
Reply-To: seidl@next1.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: next1.lbl.gov
Keywords: mail


I have a mail problem.  It has to do with domains and subdomains.  My domain is  
'gov', the subdomain is 'lbl', which is also the name of a computer at LBL  
(Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory) which stores what I call routing stuff so that I  
can send to anywhere in the world by just knowing the address and not having to  
load the whole world's internet numbers into my computer.   The problem is that  
I can't properly take advantage of the database on lbl.gov.  For instance, if I  
want to send mail to username@gav.gat.com (that would work fine from non-next  
machines at the lab), I have to 're-route' it by addressing it as follows:
  
  username%gav.gat.com@csa1.lbl.gov
  
I realize that it works, but it seems to be clumsier than necessary.
 

You can reach most people at lbl using username@lbl.gov addressing, and lbl  
will route their mail to wherever they like to read it.  Therefore, I don't  
need to worry about what machine they read mail on (there are probably several  
hundred possibilities at LBL), as long as they are registered in the database  
on lbl.gov.  Note that almost nobody has an active account on lbl.gov; the  
'postmaster' there just pushes it around on our behalf.  Unfortunately, all  
this doesn't work from next1.lbl.gov.  For instance, if I try to reach someone  
who I know is registered in the lbl.gov database (I know this because I do the  
'finger' command), the mail gets bounced back with a complaint as follows:

Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 15:54:35 GMT-0700
From: Mailer-Agent (NeXT Mail Agent)
Subject: Returned mail: User unknown
To: seidl

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
550 gelbaum@lbl.gov... User unknown

   ----- Unsent message follows -----
Return-Path: <seidl>
Received: by  (NeXT-1.0 (From Sendmail 5.52)/NeXT-2.0)
	id AA02536; Mon, 31 Aug 92 15:54:35 GMT-0700
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 15:54:35 GMT-0700
From: seidl (Peter Seidl)
Message-Id: <9208312254.AA02536@>
Errors-To: seidl
Received: by NeXT Mailer (1.63.RR)
To: gelbaum@lbl.gov
Subject: test
Cc: seidl



sending to gelbaum@lbl.gov

===============================================

However, 'finger' led me to believe that it should work:

next1# finger gelbaum@lbl.gov
[lbl.gov]
[isotop.lbl.gov] 
LBL X.500 Service.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARTIN GELBAUM, staff, people

commonName            - MARTIN GELBAUM
description           - LBL Dept.: ICSD - COMPUTING SERVICES
postalAddress         - Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
                        1 Cyclotron Road
                        Mail Stop 50F
                        Berkeley, CA 94720
                        USA
telephoneNumber       - +1 510-486-4749
rfc822Mailbox         - M_Gelbaum@lbl.gov
roomNumber            - 50F-114

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
next1# 

By the way, send to M_Gelbaum@lbl.gov yeilds the same results.  Also, doing  
this using 'mail -v username@lbl.gov' gives the same results.

  So, for instance, my generic address is seidl@lbl.gov.  lbl routes my mail to  
a sun workstation (seidl@ux5.lbl.gov), but it gets bounced back if I send to  
seidl@lbl.gov, (BUT seidl@ux5.lbl.gov works fine!)
  

In case it helps, here are the first several lines from my sendmail.cf

# my official hostname
#Dj$?m $w.$m $| $w $.
Dwnext1
# If you want the gateway machine to appear to be INSIDE the domain, use:
#Dj$w.$m

DDlbl.gov
# Major relay mailer - typical choice is "ddn" if you are on the
# Defense Data Network (e.g. Arpanet or Milnet).  All mail for
# non-local domains will be forwarded to the major relay host using
# the major relay mailer.  We chose "uucp" as the default because most
# isolated networks use it to link their network with the outside
# world.
#
# If you want to use a relay mailer, examine ruleset 0.  There are some
 
 
 


Any suggestions?

I'm far from being a unix expert (as you can probably tell) so if you can keep  
the explanations simple, I'd greatly appreciate it.

thanks



--
Peter Seidl
Heavy Ion Fusion Accelerator Research 
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Berkeley, CA 94720

seidl@next1.lbl.gov