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From: andy@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Andy S Poling)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: Sendmail -v mode address testing problems
Summary: it's right
Keywords: sendmail, address parsing, mailer resolution
Message-ID: <6041@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Date: 7 Aug 90 17:15:23 GMT
References: <923@syacus.acus.oz>
Reply-To: andy@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Andy Poling)
Followup-To: comp.mail.sendmail
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University - HCF
Lines: 44

In article <923@syacus.acus.oz> grants@syacus.acus.oz (Grant Sayer) writes:
>When performing some testing on sendmail handling of addresses 
>the following error message occurs:
>	"buildaddr: no user"
>Sendmail has been invoked as /usr/lib/sendmail -v /dev/null {address}
>
>This problem only occurs when the address matches one particular rewrite
>rule in S0.  The address is something like grants@mhs.donald and matches
>a rule:
>
>R$*<@$=C>$*		$#bmailer$@$2:$1
[...]
>Can anyone offer any suggestions as to why the error 'buildaddr: no user'
>occurs ?

The error message is correct.  When you are resolving to a mailer, you have
to provide the following:

	a mailer - 		marked by $#
	an optional hostname -	marked by $@
	a username -		marked by $:

Looking at your rule's RHS (wih optional spaces added for readability) shows:
	$# bmailer $@ $2:$1
which breaks out into:
	bmailer		the mailer
	$2:$1		the hostname?

But where is the username?  Perhaps you meant for the RHS to read:
	$# bmailer $@ $2 $: $1

Now you know why I use the optional spaces in virtually every rewriting rule
in my cf files - it makes problems much easier to find.

Using the optional spaces also make lines containing $@, $:, and $> easier
to read.  Remember the rules:

1) the LHS, RHS and comments must be seperated by at least one tab character
2) there may be embedded spaces in the LHS, RHS, and comments
3) tabs or spaces begin continuation lines
4) blank lines and lines beginning with a pound sign ("#") are comments

IMHO, alot of people might be less intimidated by sendmail.cf files if they
contained more spaces.