Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: sendmail problem... Keywords: sendmail smail rmail uucp Message-ID: <1990Oct4.021010.9805@mp.cs.niu.edu> Date: 4 Oct 90 02:10:10 GMT References: <485@bnrunix.UUCP> Organization: Northern Illinois University Lines: 34 In article <485@bnrunix.UUCP> chris@bnrunix.UUCP (Chris Fulmer) writes: >Hi there. > >This has probably been asked before, but.... > >We are having a problem with external people replying to mail sent from our >host across our uu link. > >I think that what happens is that the replyed to mail gets copied to our >local host, via uucico and gets picked up by smail. smail connects to the smtp >port on the local machine, strips the local name off of the incoming message, >and trys to do a HELO with that name. Now, the problem is that if the name >(...) If smail is really doing this, then it is badly designed. The name used in the HELO message is supposed to be the host name. It should have absolutely nothing to do with the addresses in the mail. It ought to be a fixed value, either hard coded into smail, or in a configuration file. The name 'sendmail' uses for this purpose is $j, usually defined in the 'Dj' line of 'sendmail.cf'. It is supposed to be the fully qualified domain name of the host. To avoid having problems, smail should use a different name. Possible choices - 'localhost' is good, especially if it is doing the SMTP transfer over the loopback net. In checking out MH I have found no problems with its client mode SMTP. If the output it lists is complete with the 'snoop' option, then MH is not even using the HELO command, which if it works would certainly be one way of avoiding the problem. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115. +1-815-753-6940