[comp.mail.sendmail] Unparseable User

mills@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gary Mills) (11/25/89)

Why does sendmail say these things to me, and what is it trying to tell me?

Nov 24 13:43:29 ccu sendmail[26191]: Unparseable user ean wants to be randal@pembina.unspecified-domain
Nov 24 13:43:30 ccu sendmail[26191]: AA26191: message-id=<8911241815.AA24722@cavell.alberta.uucp>
Nov 24 13:43:30 ccu sendmail[26191]: AA26191: from=ean, size=1525, class=0
Nov 24 13:43:32 ccu sendmail[26191]: AA26191: to=hotz@ccm.umanitoba.ca,rflukes@ccm.umanitoba.ca, delay=00:00:03, stat=Sent

The mail came in from my X.400 mail system, with id `ean', and went out
via smtp to my MVS mailer.
-- 
-Gary Mills-             -University of Manitoba-             -Winnipeg-

nowicki@legato (Bill Nowicki) (12/01/89)

In article <1989Nov24.200312.29676@ccu.umanitoba.ca> mills@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gary Mills) writes:
>Why does sendmail say these things to me, and what is it trying to tell me?
>
>Nov 24 13:43:29 ccu sendmail[26191]: Unparseable user ean wants to be randal@pembina.unspecified-domain

Sendmail tries to parse the envelope sender through ruleset zero.
Even though this does not affect delivery of the message, it is useful
for keeping statistics, and especially to guarantee that transport
errors get sent back to the right place.  If the sender name in the
envelope resolves to the "error" mailer, then you get the above error,
and sendmail substitutes a known good name, usually the name obtained
from the uid running the program.

The real fix is to find out who is sending you this mail with the
bogus envelope sender name.  ".unspecified-domain" is not a valid
top-level domain name, of course.

	-- WIN