Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!leah!bingvaxu!sunybcs!rutgers!orstcs!mist!hakanson
From: hakanson@mist.cs.orst.edu (Marion Hakanson)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: Unknown Host Error
Message-ID: <5951@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Date: 9 Aug 88 00:15:26 GMT
References: <277@hal.UUCP>
Sender: netnews@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU
Reply-To: hakanson@mist.CS.ORST.EDU (Marion Hakanson)
Organization: Oregon State University - CS - Corvallis, Oregon
Lines: 25

In article <277@hal.UUCP> ane@hal.cwru.edu (Aydin "Bif" Edguer) writes:
>Environment:
>I am currently running sendmail 5.59 on a VAX 11/750 under 4.3 BSD.
>I am also running named 4.8.
>. . .
>Fact:
>I do not understand how named and sendmail can resolve the name AND the
>host still be UNKNOWN!
>Verified by this posting :-)
>. . .
>Aydin Edguer
>ane@hal.cwru.edu


This rather surprising behavior can occur when (for example) someone has
an MX record pointing to an unknown host.  Sendmail reports the original
destination host as being unknown, when it is actually the MX-er which
cannot be resolved.  Get into nslookup, "set type=MX" and look at what
MX records exist for that host.  To find the offender, "set type=A" and
try each of the MX hosts shown above.  Needless to say, a better diagnostic
from sendmail would be greatly appreciated.

-- 
Marion Hakanson         Domain: hakanson@cs.orst.edu
                        UUCP  : {hp-pcd,tektronix}!orstcs!hakanson