Xref: utzoo comp.sys.hp:8496 comp.mail.sendmail:3074 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp,comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: sendmail won't talk to itself Keywords: mail Message-ID: <1991Apr19.132241.28391@mp.cs.niu.edu> Date: 19 Apr 91 13:22:41 GMT References: <1991Apr19.051644.14246@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> Organization: Northern Illinois University Lines: 51 In article <1991Apr19.051644.14246@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> dbm@icarus.jsc.nasa.gov (Brad Mears) writes: >My HP 9000/370 occaisionly forgets how to receive mail. When this happens, it >refuses all incoming mail with the following error message : > >> ----- Transcript of session follows ----- >> >>While connected to deltahp.jsc.nasa.gov [134.118.141.8] (tcp): >>>-> HELO deltahp >><<< 553 deltahp I refuse to talk to myself >> >>554 ... Service unavailable > >I have to restart sendmail to get it working right. Any ideas why it might do >this? > >BTW, I thought the HELO line was of the form HELO . In the >case above, deltahp is the destination. Is that part of the problem? You are confusing yourself here. The transcript show BOTH sides of the "conversation". Since your 'sendmail' is talking to itself, the identification you saw is correct. What is happening is that the address 'dbm@deltahp.jsc.nasa.gov' is not being recognized as a local address. Thus sendmail is finding its IP address, and opening a connection. The trouble is it is connecting back to itself. It then recognizes the error and reports the error message. You seem to imply that this is an intermittent fault. If so, it is probably related to the way 'sendmail' determines its own name. It should normally use: gethostbyname(gethostname()) When your name server is running this consults the DNS records. When your nameserver is not running this consults your host table. Your /etc/hosts is probably set up with the short name first, and the `hostname` command probably returns the unqualified name. You either need to reconfigure your system so that gethostbyname(gethostname()) always returns the fully qualified name, no matter what the status of your network connections, or you need to define $w with sendmail.cf, as in Dwdbm@deltahp.jsc.nasa.gov By the way, I added comp.mail.sendmail back on the newsgroups, since I have no intention of subscribing to comp.sys.hp. -- =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science Northern Illinois Univ. DeKalb, IL 60115 +1-815-753-6940