Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!ucbvax!TRANSARC.COM!Craig_Everhart From: Craig_Everhart@TRANSARC.COM Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: AIX sendmail problem Message-ID: Date: 28 Mar 91 17:23:39 GMT References: <759@bcstec.boeing.com> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: na Lines: 25 This isn't just an AIX sendmail problem, but a sendmail problem for all platforms. (This is from memory.) The code in sendmail that prints messages like this ("450 User at lunch") is real convoluted. Essentially, if a message starts with three digits, this code will assume that these three digits are the SMTP message code, and will separate them out, rather than finding the message code in some other parameter or global variable. As to the fourth character, I'd guess that it's allowed to be space or hyphen, but will get clobbered to space if the caller was so unwise as not to have allowed that. Thus, when sendmail starts up, it would ordinarily print its ``220 my.domain.name'' message, but if ``my.domain.name'' really starts with three digits as 777sup1.ca.boeing.com does, the greet message will be printed with a 777 message code. Of course, in SMTP-land, such a code would indicate something truly weird going on. The only solutions I can think of involve heavy sendmail hacks, running something besides sendmail as an SMTP server, or changing the host name involved so it doesn't start with three digits. Craig