Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!ethz!neptune!inf.ethz.ch!white From: white@inf.ethz.ch (RJ White) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: having problem with Sun sendmail 4.1 Message-ID: <12931@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> Date: 25 Oct 90 03:05:38 GMT Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch Lines: 59 Help!?! I'm baffled. I'm using Sun sendmail 4.1 on a Sun 3/260 running SunOS 4.0.3 It seems the $x variable ( full name of sender ) is not being set. I don't have source. According to the Sun documentation, stolen from the Berkeley documentation, $x gets set : - by a flag to sendmail ( no it isn't ) - from the 'Full-name: ' in the header if it exists ( this works ) - from the comment field in the 'From: ' line ( no it isn't ) - finally from the passwd file ( no it isn't ) Note that the above case that works (Full-name) is when I manually feed it to sendmail. I am trying this on a yellow pages *master*, so even if it doesn't use yellow pages, it should still see it in the passwd file. I also tried the OY option to say 'Dont use yellow pages'. No difference. The Q file that is sent to our server machine (sendmail white@inf.ethz.ch) is: Swhite H?D?date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 03:25:52 +0100 H?F?from: H?x?full-name: H?P?return-path: H?M?message-id: <9010250225.AA22245@orion.inf.ethz.ch> Hreceived: by orion.inf.ethz.ch id AA22245; Thu, 25 Oct 90 03:25:52 +0100 Happarently-to: white@inf.ethz.ch Rwhite@inf.ethz.ch Notice the 'full-name' above. The relevant stuff in my config file is : Dq$?x$x $.<$g> H?F?From: $q H?x?Full-Name: $x ie: $x is not set. No, I'm not accidently doing a Dxsomething or Fx anywhere. Now, this *does* work on another Sun of mine, same software, with a very different config file. However, the differences are basically in ruleset 0. (famous last words). The header declarations are the same. The 'ether' mailer description is the same. All the mailers are. None of that should matter. The amusing thing is, if mail from a system that doesn't set $x goes to my mail server where it does work, it ends up setting the full-name to the NAME environment variable of the sendmail deamon of whoever started it. So all mail from everybody came 'From: RJ White ' So you have to make sure NAME isn't set when you manually start it. Then, if the originator happens to have an account on that mail server, the full-name gets set to the GCOS field and a 'From: ' is generated. ( The reason mail goes to a mail server and not directly to where its finally destined for using DNS is complicated politicol and technical reasons ) I've tried several things. I tried the 'x' option (mailer wants a 'Full-Name') with the ether mailer. Didn't matter. Anyway, any hints would be greatly appeciated. replies to white@inf.ethz.ch -rj