Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ra!Ra.MsState.Edu!fwp1 From: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: HELP! Sendmail addressing on a local net Message-ID: Date: 13 Dec 90 04:07:39 GMT References: <1990Dec12.214505.25144@dirtydog.ima.isc.com> Sender: usenet@ra.MsState.Edu Organization: Computing Center, Mississippi State University Lines: 77 Nntp-Posting-Host: ra.msstate.edu In-reply-to: eli@ima.isc.com's message of 12 Dec 90 21:45:05 GMT To: In article <1990Dec12.214505.25144@dirtydog.ima.isc.com> eli@ima.isc.com (Elias Israel) writes: You see, we used to have a big ol' mainframe on which everyone read their mail. Over the last year or so, we've migrated mail slowly to a more workstation-based model where everyone reads their mail on a separate machine. Whereas on the old system we could just send mail to any old user and trust that it would get into their mail box properly, we can't do that anymore. We'd like to continue to have this sort of "mainframe" name space, where you can just use a local user's login id and know that the mail will get to their mailbox without having to know where that mailbox might be. To support that behavior now, we're faced with either replicating the /usr/lib/aliases file on every machine or having to remember to say . Hmmm..have you considered sharing your mail spool file across machines? We have done so almost since day one of our connection to the internet and have experienced no problems that weren't attributable to systems manager error. Here is how we have mail arranged here. We have a single system designated as our mail hub. All of the other machines are mail clients. The clients have a sendmail.cf file that basically passes everything on to the central mail server (even mail that would normally be local like a message from user 'joe' to user 'sally'). If you don't want to share your mail spool you can have the machine deliver everything except mail with the fully qualified local host name to the server. Mail is passed to the server with the address exactly as it appeared locally (for example mail from joe to sally is given to the server with a source of joe and a destination of sally...no local host name is appended. This has two effects. First, the cf file is trivially simple and requires no maintenance for new address formats (since those are interpreted by the server) and the server can see mail with two 'local' addresses and treat them as if they were sent locally. Now, you have arranged for all of your mail to be sent to a single machine. This machine has a full blown cf file and delivers non-local mail to its ultimate destination. And the address in the From: header and such is for EVERYONE no matter which local host the mail originated. And of course you can do things like hide the host name and just use the domain portion. In our case local mail is then delivered locally in the usual way and all hosts see it via NFS. If you don't elect to do this you would have a single aliases file on the server that has the fully qualified hostname of the actual 'home machine' for the recipient. The client then deliveres mail with its full domain name locally. This all sounds much more complicated than it is. The clients all have an identical sendmail.cf file (except for the definition of the local host name). And the server's sendmail.cf file is full featured but otherwise nothing particularly special. All mail for local users can be sent to a single hostname and is passed out from there and (very important IMHO) the address put in all outgoing mail is the one you want to have (so that the reply key on the other end is useful). If you would like a more detailed explanation of our mail system please feel free to let me know. I'll be glad to discuss it with you, give some sendmail.cf file examples and such. Oh, by the way. Sun sendmail has an option that can be used to have the client forward mail to the mail server. Avoid using this. I never got it to really work right (and have heard many others with the same complaint). Doing it in the rewriting rules is much neater and more portable. Regards, FWP -- -- Frank Peters Internet: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu Bitnet: FWP1@MsState Phone: (601)325-2942 FAX: (601)325-8921