[comp.mail.sendmail] Sendmail, forwarding unknown addresses

dan@asihub.UUCP (Dan O'Neill) (11/10/89)

Our company has several sites which are connect by uucp to a central
site.  I would like to have sendmail forward mail whose address cannot
be resolved locally to our central site.

Here's some background information:

	- OS is Ultrix 3.x
	- We are running smail in conjunction with sendmail
	- We are using the smail "smart-host" setup so that mail
	  addressed to "joe@kool.com" is forwarded to a site with
	  full maps.

Things are working fine with this setup, however, I do have some
trouble keeping the alias files up to date at each site.  It would be
nice if I didn't have to do this.

Here is an example which should better illustrate what I want.

Say on site A, we have the users:

	bob, gail, james

On site B, we have:

	jay, elaine, mary

And at our central site, C, we have an alias file that is always up to
date.  UUCP connections are something like this:

		  +------- uucp ------- [site A] bob, gail, james
		  |
 [site C(entral)] +
  full alias      |
  database for    +------- uucp ------- [site B] jay, elaine, mary
  all employees

At site A, bob says "mail elaine".  Sendmail at this time will
complain and return the message "user unknown".

I want sendmail to forward the message to site C for resolution when
user name is not local.  Site C should then say, "elaine is at site B"
and forward the mail there.

Is there anyway to do this with DEC's version of sendmail?  Thanks for
any pointers you can provide.
-- 
Dan O'Neill	dan@asihub.uucp    {uunet|ncr-sd}!asihub!dan
Automated Systems, Inc.  San Diego R&D