per@erix.ericsson.se (Per Hedeland) (01/16/90)
Environment: Sun's sendmail on SunOS 4.0.3, although I believe this is a generic sendmail question. We have sendmail.cf set up so that all mail sent from (or to) a number of clients gets forwarded with SMTP to a mail server (for various reasons we do *not* want to use Sun's R option for this). The problem is that when mail is sent from one of the clients, sendmail does not pick up and include the full name from the gecos field of the senders passwd entry, neither on client nor on server (which has passwd entries for all senders). I can (sort of) understand why this happens, i.e. sendmail doesn't classify the sender address as "local" in either case (but for different reasons?), but was wondering if someone maybe had some suggestions on how to handle this - I'd think that a lot of people would have run into it before... Thanks in advance --Per Hedeland per@erix.ericsson.se or per%erix.ericsson.se@uunet.uu.net or ...uunet!erix.ericsson.se!per
andy@acorn.co.uk (Andy Ingle) (01/16/90)
In article <2596@erix.ericsson.se> per@erix.ericsson.se (Per Hedeland) writes: >Environment: Sun's sendmail on SunOS 4.0.3, although I believe this is a >generic sendmail question. > >We have sendmail.cf set up so that all mail sent from (or to) a number of >clients gets forwarded with SMTP to a mail server (for various reasons we do >*not* want to use Sun's R option for this). The problem is that when mail is >sent from one of the clients, sendmail does not pick up and include the full >name from the gecos field of the senders passwd entry, neither on client nor >on server (which has passwd entries for all senders). > >I can (sort of) understand why this happens, i.e. sendmail doesn't classify the >sender address as "local" in either case (but for different reasons?), but was >wondering if someone maybe had some suggestions on how to handle this - I'd >think that a lot of people would have run into it before... I have a network of SUNs, VAXen and Acorn R140's configured as above but I don't think many sites do it this way. I have the same problem and can't see a proper way round it. I've thought of the following "solutions" but none of them solve the problem cleanly and so far I've done nothing about it. 1) If you have source code (I guess you don't) modify the user-interface to insert its own "From:" line. 2) Hack the user-interface binary so that instead of calling sendmail it will call some home-made filter to put a "From:" line in. 3) Abandon the "always forward" principle and use Yellow Pages alias database instead. 4) Introduce a class of "local users" in each sendmail.cf file so that local delivery happens for each machine's owner, but SMTP forwarding happens for any other name. (This is useless in an environment where users may send mail from any machine.) So if anyone does have a better idea please post it. I would like to see it too! --Andy Ingle
starr@mrsvr.UUCP (Larry Starr,Mezzanine,46971,5638828) (01/16/90)
From article <2596@erix.ericsson.se>, by per@erix.ericsson.se (Per Hedeland): > Environment: Sun's sendmail on SunOS 4.0.3, although I believe this is a > generic sendmail question. > > We have sendmail.cf set up so that all mail sent from (or to) a number of > clients gets forwarded with SMTP to a mail server (for various reasons we do > *not* want to use Sun's R option for this). The problem is that when mail is We use the "R" option on our 4.0.3 systems and it works quite well. We do, however have a number of 3.5 systems and I have tried, several times with no success, to implement what you are describing. I would be very interrested in a solution that works. > sent from one of the clients, sendmail does not pick up and include the full > name from the gecos field of the senders passwd entry, neither on client nor > on server (which has passwd entries for all senders). > > I can (sort of) understand why this happens, i.e. sendmail doesn't classify the > sender address as "local" in either case. That has been my experience, every rewriting scheme that I have tried rewrites both sender's and recipient's addresses and, since the sender's address does not resolve to "local" after the rewrite the full name never gets added. -- Larry Starr MR Research Facility G.E. Medical Systems
rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (01/17/90)
If clients forward all mail to the server, and receive no local mail, then put Dq$x <$g> in all client .cf files. This sets the full name $x and the mail address <$g>. q is defined to be the format of the sender's address. You don't have to conditionalize the $x since people can only send mail from a client, and in order to send mail they must be logged in and therefore have a full name from the password file. On the server, where not everyone need be in the password file, put this line Dq$?x$x <$g>$|$g$. -- Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net. Use a domain-based address or give alternate paths, or you may lose out.
rhoward@prism.gatech.edu (Robert L. Howard) (01/19/90)
In article <1351@acorn.co.uk> andy@acorn.UUCP (Andy Ingle) writes: >In article <2596@erix.ericsson.se> per@erix.ericsson.se (Per Hedeland) writes: >>Environment: Sun's sendmail on SunOS 4.0.3, although I believe this is a >>generic sendmail question. [lots of problem description] > I've thought of the following >"solutions" but none of them solve the problem cleanly and so far I've >done nothing about it. > > 3) Abandon the "always forward" principle and use Yellow Pages alias > database instead. Why is this not a good idea? (or is it a good idea?) What is the impact on performance? I know it works. Please post the reply or send mail to the address below. (Hitting 'r' won't work, mail problems ;-( ) Robert -- Robert L. Howard (GTRI/STL/MSD) (404) 528-7165 Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,ut-ngp}!gatech!willie!rhoward Internet: rhoward@willie.gatech.edu