[comp.mail.sendmail] accepting mail for an alias hostname

tony@mpg.phys.hawaii.edu (Antonio Querubin) (05/28/91)

The hostname for our system just changed and I would like it to accept mail
for both the old and new hostnames during a transition period.  I thought 
this was simply a matter of putting the following rule into sendmail.cf:

R$*oldname$*	$1newname$2

I put this into several rulesets and it didn't really work except for local
mail addressed to the old hostname.  When a remote host makes a connection to 
our system I get an error message generated to postmaster:

<<< 553 mpg.phys.hawaii.edu host name configuration error
554 <tony@uhcmtg.phys.hawaii.edu>... Service unavailable

So I know the remote machine is making the SMTP connection but the local system
is rejecting the mail.

I'm running SUN's sendmail with SunOS 4.0.3.

Anyone got any clues for me on making this work?  Perhaps I'm just putting the
rule into the wrong ruleset?  Please respond here rather than by e-mail as it
will be a while before our local nameservers are updated with the new hostname.

Thanks!



-- 
Antonio Querubin  
tony@mpg.phys.hawaii.edu / ah6bw@uhm.ampr.org / querubin@uhunix.bitnet

rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) (05/29/91)

 [Followup in case the email message was not received]
In article <13228@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> tony@mpg.phys.hawaii.edu (Antonio Querubin) writes:
>The hostname for our system just changed and I would like it to accept mail
>for both the old and new hostnames during a transition period.  I thought 
>this was simply a matter of putting the following rule into sendmail.cf:
>
>R$*oldname$*	$1newname$2
>
>I put this into several rulesets and it didn't really work except for local
>mail addressed to the old hostname.  When a remote host makes a connection to 
>our system I get an error message generated to postmaster:

  When the address works correctly on locally originating mail, but fails on
mail from elsewhere, always look to see if the sendmail daemon has been killed
and restarted since modifying 'sendmail.cf'.  Otherwise the daemon may still
be using the old configuration.  There is no way to persuade the daemon to
re-read its configuration dynamically.  You have to kill and restart.

  Look in /etc/rc* to find the exact startup command.

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940

tony@mpg.phys.hawaii.edu (Antonio Querubin) (05/29/91)

In article <1991May29.000921.9277@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>
>  When the address works correctly on locally originating mail, but fails on
>mail from elsewhere, always look to see if the sendmail daemon has been killed
>and restarted since modifying 'sendmail.cf'.  Otherwise the daemon may still
>be using the old configuration.  There is no way to persuade the daemon to
>re-read its configuration dynamically.  You have to kill and restart.
 .....

Yes that pretty sums up what I had forgotten to do as several people pointed
out to me.  When I got the first reply to my question I wanted to beat my
head against the wall...

Thank you very much to the folks who responded!


-- 
Antonio Querubin  
tony@mpg.phys.hawaii.edu / ah6bw@uhm.ampr.org / querubin@uhunix.bitnet

Craig_Everhart@TRANSARC.COM (05/29/91)

(I'm sending this to comp.mail.sendmail because it's unclear how to get
mail to the sender, given the complaint!)

Which is the old name and which is the new?

At the moment, mpg has an MX record pointing to uhcmtg, and uhcmtg is
listed as a CNAME for mpg (all correctly translated to fully-qualified
domains).  You can't have both of these.  The target for an MX record
needs to be a name that isn't a CNAME.

		Craig