Xref: utzoo comp.mail.misc:926 comp.mail.uucp:1154
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!iuvax!ndmath!ndcheg!evan
From: evan@ndcheg.UUCP (Evan Bauman)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: YASQ (yet another sendmail question)
Message-ID: <428@ndcheg.UUCP>
Date: 23 Mar 88 22:08:47 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Notre Dame
Lines: 52
Keywords: sendmail,tcp/ip,argghhhh


Notre Dame will soon be joining the NSFnet, so we're attempting
to teach sendmail how to deliver mail via SMTP to remote sites.

Our routing strategy is this:

1) handle all local mail

2) if the site is in /etc/hosts, deliver via SMTP

3) all the rest of the addresses are fed into smail/pathalias
for routing.

We have steps 1 and 3 working.  Our last problem lies in determining
if the address is in /etc/hosts (or its yellow pages equivalent).  BTW,
we don't have a name-server hosts here yet, but I don't think it would
matter.

From what I can tell, sendmail parses everything on the right side
of the '@' into individual components; i.e.

user @  "site" "." "site" "." "site" "." "domain"

If any of the individual "site"s are in /etc/hosts, then the mail is properly
routed via SMTP.  But there's going to be a multitude of entries with the
format

200.200.200.200		a.b.c.edu

and not

200.200.200.200		sitename

so sendmail doesn't see that the RHS of the '@' is equivalent to anything
in /etc/hosts.  This results in the address being sent on to smail/pathalias
which is OK, but not the best use of our resources.  It's also a waste
of resources at places such as rutgers.  (incentive for rutgers people
to lend a hand!)

If anyone's figured out a solution for this, we'd be glad to know.  Thanks
in advance.

	Evan Bauman
	Univ. of Notre Dame
	..!iuvax!ndcheg!evan
	(219)-239-5699

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