Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!mips!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!princeton!jvnc.net!aggarwal
From: aggarwal@jvnc.net (Vikas Aggarwal)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Mailer description
Message-ID: <1991May9.184833.4186@jvnc.net>
Date: 9 May 91 18:48:33 GMT
Reply-To: aggarwal@r2d2.jvnc.net (Vikas Aggarwal)
Organization: JvNCnet, Princeton University
Lines: 53
Originator: aggarwal@r2d2.jvnc.net
Nntp-Posting-Host: r2d2.jvnc.net

I had earlier asked:

> What exactly is the '$[name$]' rule supposed to do ? The paper (written
> sometime in 1987) says that it replaces the `name' with the cname, and
> I was hoping that it would do the same for the MX entries.

To which Neil W. Rickert had replied:

>> when your mailer selection rules say to forward the message to domain
>> 'foo.bar.domain', sendmail at that time looks up MX records, and attempts
>> to send to the best preference MX host..

Well, I was trying to set up my configuration file so that mail to
abc@foo.domain would resolve to user 'foo' on my host (the user's
account acts like a MBOX). So I defined a class of the 'foo's that I
want to accept mail for, etc and have a ruleset like:

CT arpa com edu gov mil net org
CM usl meckler

# In rule S0...
R$*<@$=M.$=T>           $#local$:$2        @user.TopDomains -> user local

The one major problem being that my host is supposed to be the MX record
for usl.com and *not* usl.edu. Thus, if mail originates from a remote
host, it will make it to my host and this ruleset will deliver the mail
to the proper account. However, for mail *originating* from my host for
usl.edu will also get delivered to my local host.

Is there a way that I could process each message twice- first send it
out to the proper host and if the message comes back (since my host is
has the MX record for the message), *then* I process the message and
deliver it ?

Any help anyone ? Perhaps a mailer description ?

The reason that I am doing this is that I want to accept mail for other
domains and deliver them to accounts on my system- that way my host can
act like a mail storage area. Also, to avoid having a table where each
domain maps into an account name, I just wanted to grab the first word
of the destination domain and use it as the account name- the
destination account is then embedded in the mail address.

Also, the BSD version of sendmail does not handle muilti-token class
matches (so I can't define CM usl.edu pumaat.com) and hope to match
it. I know that the Sun version of MX does, but I don't want to start
all over unless I am absolutely sure that the present BSD sendmail
cannot do what I want it to...


 -vikas
 vikas@jvnc.net						(609) 258-2403
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