Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!wrdis01!mips!twg.com!david From: david@twg.com (David S. Herron) Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail Subject: Re: SCO Unix sendmail initialization problem Message-ID: <8987@gollum.twg.com> Date: 30 May 91 01:52:06 GMT References: <7647@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> Organization: The Wollongong Group, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 104 In article <7647@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) writes: ... >SCO ships the system with mmdf, and there may be an interaction problem >with the mmdfdeliver daemon which is always there sitting in the >background. I'd just as soon dump mmdf entirely, though SCO's >documentation implies that mmdf is superior and one should dump >sendmail instead. If mmdf is superior, then my first question is "How >can I make it communicate with remote sendmail daemons?" and my second >is "Why doesn't mmdf handle domain name service?" Ah, but MMDF *is* superior. (At least from a design perspective, sendmail is "better" in a couple of respects, one of which being that lots of people understand it and you can ask questions and get answers. Fortunately I understand MMDF and can likely answer your questions.) Getting MMDF to communicate with sendmail's is trivial. It happens all the time. There's this protocol which runs over TCP/IP which is called SMTP. Go read RFC-821 if you want a description of the protocol. To get MMDF to send mail through SMTP you enable a SMTP channel (should already be there in the mmdftailor file). You then put host names & addresses in the SMTP channel table like e.ms.uky.edu: 128.163.128.5 and run dbmbuild. This'll provide you with host->IP Address mappings and it'll work fine. MMDF does do domain names, however I have been told that the version which SCO shipped did not. So instead of putting in a static table for the SMTP channel you'd put MTBL name=chnsmtp, ... flags=ns MCHN name=smtp, table=chnsmtp, ... And it works. I use it all the time. The support for this in update 43 (the current version) is much better than the support in update 32 (the version SCO shipped). Again, I have been told that SCO will be shipping a new version sometime soonish which is update 43 plus whatever they do to it. I don't follow SCO very closely so I don't know what their schedule is, or if they've already done it at all. >I'd like to hear from anyone who has had to set up e-mail on a TCP/IP- >based LAN containing SCO Unix systems mixed with others (AIX, NCR, and >so on), using a sendmail daemon on a non-SCO system to relay mail to >the Internet via UUCP. (I've got my domain name server set up to >recognize systems on a domain called "kronos.com", and I've got SCO >sendmail configured to relay all mail addressed to external domains >to a given system on the LAN that knows how to pass it along to >the world-wide Internet.) With MMDF; to do that "pass unknown stuff to a smart host", you enable a "badhosts" channel by doing something like: MTBL name=cbadhosts, file="Channels/badhosts", show="Bad Hosts" MCHN badhosts, que=badhosts, tbl=cbadhosts, pgm=smtp, mod=imm, mod=reg, ap=822, host="ddnvax.twg.com", confstr="Obelix.twg.com" Then, since pgm=smtp, the file referenced in the MTBL declaration must be in a form the SMTP channel will accept. See the host: IP addr discussion above. Something you should *DEFINITELY* do is make sure that all your addresses in the headers get fully qualified domain names attached to them all the time. There are two problems being attacked by this suggestion -- Headers like To: joe, bob, riggs From: david What happens to this header when it escapes from the local system? Normally people try to only attach domain names to mail if it is leaving the system through an MTA. However if the message leaves embedded inside another message, for instance as part of a digest, then it will be unreplyable. -- Non fully qualified domain names are better than no domain names. But it can cause problems, again, if the message escapes without having its domain names fully qualified. In general, though, it's one less thing to worry over if you go ahead and put the right answer there. You should also endeavor to make your headers look like From: David Herron To: Joe Bloe , Dave Crocker Because it looks nicer than any other format. >-rich David -- <- David Herron, an MMDF & WIN/MHS guy, <- <- <- "MS-DOS? Where we're going we don't need MS-DOS." --Back To The Future