test 2

[Rick Stevens]

James Wilkinson wrote:
> Neil Bird wrote:
> 
>>  Yes, that's how I verified that my posts hadn't made it to the lists. 
>> These seem to be working OK, though, and my re-worded post (about 
>>grub) made it [although no-one's answered yet].
>>
>>  I'm trying to find out if we've some weird anti-spam filter on 
>>out-going emails here at work;  that's all I can think it'd be.
> 
> 
> I have had a number of e-mails to the Fedora lists be silently dropped.
> In each case, the problem was that my e-mail system was not properly set
> up (yet), and the redhat.com system dropped the e-mail.
> 
> What I normally fall foul of is getting the envelope MAIL FROM: address
> correct. This isn't the same thing as the "From: " line in the header,
> and it isn't too easy to see what it *is* set to.
> 
> Red Hat won't accept e-mails unless the hostname in the MAIL FROM:
> address resolves (it doesn't have to be subscribed. They use the From:
> in the header for that).
> 
> I suspect that programs such as Thunderbird, Eudora, and Outlook Express
> that submit e-mails through a SMTP link do just copy the "From: " line
> in the header. But if you use something like mutt that uses
> sendmail-compatible message submission, your MTA will [1] use your
> username and its idea of what the local host is called. And I haven't
> always thought to check that it's using westexe.demon.co.uk, not
> localhost.localdomain or my internal name for the computer.

Well, technically the outgoing MTA is responsible for setting up the
envelope.  Mail clients such as Thunderbird, Eudora, Mozilla, and even
the Typhoid Mary (virus carrier, you know) of all mail clients, Outlook
communicate with the outgoing MTA which adds the envelope appropriately.

mutt, pine, etc. typically send their mail by talking to your _local_
machine's sendmail, which makes it the outgoing MTA and yes, it will
create the envelope based on what the $j macro comes up with (should be
set to the FQDN of the machine).  You can check that by doing:

	sendmail -bt -d0.1

The important macros will be displayed.  Hit "CTRL-D" at the ">" prompt
to exit.

Should you need to, you can fake that out by editing
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf and modifying this line:

	#Dj$w.Foo.COM

to
	Djmyhostname.mydomain.mytopdomain

For example:

	Djfred.bedrock.com

would make sendmail think the FQDN is "fred.bedrock.com".  Another
option is to set up the "DS" (smart host) line in the same file.  The
smart host would be the FQDN or IP address of your ISP's mail server.
Assuming your ISP's outgoing mail server is "smtp.bedrock.com",

	DSsmtp.bedrock.com

would set that up and all outgoing mail would go there first.

The best bet is to make sure your machine has had its hostname set
properly so the $j macro is correct when sendmail starts up.  All the
rest of the stuff should be automatic at that point.

> At least posting to the Fedora list keeps my mail setup working
> properly!
> 
> I've learnt that lesson now. Time to go make more mistakes...

I never make mistakes.  I thought I did once, but I was wrong.

> 
> James.
> 
> [1] Unless I'm missing a config option somewhere, which is quite
> possible.

See the "Dj" and "DS" options I mentioned above.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
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