gwalsh@kilroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Gerald J. Walsh) (10/14/90)
We recently purchased 3 NeXT computer systems and have been having trouble
getting the mail system to receive mail properly. I'm the System
Administrator for our Sun SparcStation 1+ machines so the people that got
the NeXT machines asked me for help. I started by configuring their
'sendmail.cf' file to basically match the same configuration as that on
the Suns. First of all, I noticed that the sendmail.cf file is in the
/etc/sendmail directory and not in the /etc directory like the Sun. To
be safe, I put a copy of sendmail.cf in both directories. Our machines
are configured to use the nameserver as a mail relay too. We started out
by sending mail from the NeXT to one of the Sun machines. This worked out
fine, but it appears that the NeXT sent it directly, rather than going
through the mail relay, since there was no extra header from the mail
relay in the received message.
For the next test, we sent mail from the sun to the NeXT using the '-v'
(verbose) mode option in mail. This allowed us to watch the connection
for problems. We saw none.. the mail went off just fine! Within a
minute or two, I got a message from the Mailer Daemon on the Sun telling
me that the message did not make it. Here is an excerpt from that message:
----- Transcript of session follows -----
Connected to talia.jpl.nasa.gov:
>>> HELO talia.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
<<< 553 talia.Jpl.Nasa.Gov host name configuration error
554 <me@talia.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>... Service unavailable
The next thing I tried was to telnet to port 25 on the NeXT and go through
the process of sending mail manually. I did the HELO and told it I was
kilroy.jpl.nasa.gov and I all the other things involved in sending mail
(MAIL, RCPT, DATA, QUIT). All of these worked fine, so it appears that
the NeXT is doing something with the mail after that and then generating
the returned mail. The next thing I did was telnet to port 25 again, but
this time, rather than telling it I was kilroy with mail (ie):
$ telnet talia 25
HELO kilroy.jpl.nasa.gov
I did this:
$ telnet talia 25
HELO talia.jpl.nasa.gov
In this way, I was telling the mail program on talia that I WAS the
machine talia with mail. At this point, the machine gave me the same
output as it did when it bounced the mail back:
<<< 553 talia.Jpl.Nasa.Gov host name configuration error
My only conclusion at this point is that once the NeXT accepts the
incoming email that it telnet's to its own port 25 to send it to itself
again and then it croaks!
Anyone got any ideas what I'm doing wrong??
Gerald J. Walsh | Internet: gwalsh@kilroy.jpl.nasa.gov
Jet Propulsion Laboratory | Phone : (818) 354-3913
RF and Microwave Subsystems Section | Fax : (818) 354-2825
M/S 238-528 |
4800 Oak Grove Drive |
Pasadena, CA 91109 |