[comp.mail.sendmail] Questions about MX handling.

eckert@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Toerless Eckert) (04/29/89)

I have looked in the sources of sendmail 5.61, and do not understand, how
the MX record stuff shoud work for me. Obviosly, MX records are only searched
when sendmail has decided to use SMTP to deliver the message, and is about
to connect to the smtp port on the remote end (in deliver()).

MX rr's are not searched for, when doing a nameserver lookup
through getcanonname (only if you set NO_WILDCARD_MX, but then you
cannot use wildcard MX records anymore).

With this setup, MX records are only useful if
a) the domain has also an address resource record, or
b) you have configured sendmail to use smtp as the default
   transport agent in case you cannot find another mailer (in which
   case deliver() will look up the MX record).
   
Setup b) is only useful if you are on the internet, but not if
your main links are uucp, as for our site. If our sendmail resolves
to use smtp in ruleset zero, but deliver does not find a fitting
MX record, i am out of luck and cannot deliver the mail again via
uucp to our Backbone, so this setup is unusable for me.

IDA has not changed that problem.

Can anyone help me with this ?



				Toerless Eckert
				(eckert@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de)