Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!peregrine!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!karl_kleinpaste From: karl_kleinpaste@cis.ohio-state.edu Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: ? Message-ID: Date: 5 Dec 90 19:18:49 GMT References: <9012050309.AA10879@cs.utexas.edu> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 15 At a guess, and only that, you are not using E=\r\n (or -ba) with sendmail. RFC821 requires that lines be terminated with , not just as is the UNIX habit. If you're not specifying the proper sequence, the VMS host may simply be waiting for you to finish typing your HELO statement at it, and wondering why it's taking your host so bloody long to do so. Your sendmail, on the other hand, believing that it has properly initiated a conversation, is wondering why the VMS host has not responded with a 2xx code so that the conversation may continue. Try echo foo | Mail -v -s testing some.user@vms.hostname which will invoke sendmail underneath with verbosity, so that you'll see the actual SMTP conversation take place. If it just hangs after your end says HELO, this is probably your problem.