[Gllug] sendmail and KMail config

Sun Apr 27 21:37:50 UTC 2003

On Sunday 27 Apr 2003 10:25 pm, Xander D Harkness put fingers to keys and 
typed:
> Richard Turner wrote:
> >On Sunday 27 Apr 2003 9:45 pm, Jim Bailey put fingers to keys and typed:
> >>On Sun, Apr 27, 2003 at 12:18:49AM +0100, Richard Turner wrote:
> >>>On Sunday 27 April 2003 00:05, Adrian McMenamin put fingers to keys and
> >
> >typed:
> >>>>On Saturday 26 April 2003 23:50, Richard Turner wrote:
> >>>>>Hi,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Now I know I'm probably asking something that's pretty easy to fix,
> >>>>>but I've really got little idea about sendmail and I don't know where
> >>>>>to start.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>I want to configure KMail to route outgoing messages through sendmail
> >>>>>running locally (on the same box).  That should be easy in KMail -
> >>>>>there are practically no options to confuse me - but all the test
> >>>>>messages I've sent to my POP3 accounts have bounced.  The messages
> >>>>>bounce because an SMTP server along the way rejects them - it can't
> >>>>>verify my email address as being valid. This is hardly surprising
> >>>>>since the address it's trying to validate is
> >>>>>richard at melkor.zygous.co.uk, i.e. richard at localhost, and that isn't
> >>>>>an Internet email address.
> >>>>
> >>>>The simplest way is configure sendmail to use a 'smarthost' - which
> >>>>most likely will be your isp's smtp server. Google on that and I am
> >>>>sure you will find out how you can do it.
> >>>>
> >>>>Your emails are being rejected because they look quite like spam at the
> >>>>moment!
> >>>>
> >>>>Adrian
> >>>
> >>>Yeah, I recognise why they're being rejected, and I've managed to
> >>>configure KMail to use my ISP's SMTP server (which is how I've managed
> >>> to send these messages to the mailing-list), but I want to be able to
> >>> send them to my sendmail and have that forward them on to my ISP's
> >>> server. This way my server can manage mail for my home network - I
> >>> share a houes with two other people and it'd be good if we could all
> >>> route our mail through my server and let it pass stuff on to my ISP
> >>> when it wants to.
> >>>
> >>>I would hope that these mesages don't look like spam at the moment -
> >>> this is probably as un-spam-like as they're likely to get :-)
> >>
> >>They may not look like spam to you but to some mail servers including a
> >>couple I look after would reject them as not having fully qualified
> >>domain names.  See Postfix UCE controls for more information.
> >>
> >>Peace Jim
> >
> >I'm getting confused now - are you saying that some servers would reject
> > my messages because richard at rj-turner.freeserve.co.uk doesn't look like a
> > fully-qualified domain name?  There must be thousands of people with
> > Freeserve addresses and they all look like that (except, perhaps, for the
> > hyphen).  I've never had trouble with this email address.
> >
> >I have already come across servers that are rejecting messages from
> >richard at melkor.zygous.co.uk but I would expect them to - that isn't a real
> >domain name - it's my host name.  That's the problem I'm trying to solve -
> >how to configure my sendmail so that messages routed through it appear to
> >originate from my Freeserve account and therefore not get rejected by
> > anyone.
>
> The main difference is with the mx records.  Many mailservers will check
> if the domain has valid mx records, or even if they can send bounce
> messages to the sender before accepting the mails.  Note that the
> freeserve domain has mx records, the second does not.
>
> Kind regards
> Xander
>
>
> dig rj-turner.freeserve.co.uk mx
>
> ; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> rj-turner.freeserve.co.uk mx
> ;; global options:  printcmd
> ;; Got answer:
> ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 9306
> ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 3
>
> ;; QUESTION SECTION:
> ;rj-turner.freeserve.co.uk.     IN      MX
>
> ;; ANSWER SECTION:
> rj-turner.freeserve.co.uk. 14400 IN     MX      2 mail-in.pol.net.uk.
>
> ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
> co.uk.                  112834  IN      NS      ns1.nic.uk.
> co.uk.                  112834  IN      NS      ns2.nic.uk.
> co.uk.                  112834  IN      NS      ns-nom.pipex.net.
> co.uk.                  112834  IN      NS      sec-nom.dns.uk.psi.net.
>
> ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
> mail-in.pol.net.uk.     2091    IN      A       195.92.193.155
> mail-in.pol.net.uk.     2091    IN      A       195.92.195.155
> ns-nom.pipex.net.       28799   IN      A       158.43.128.74
>
> ;; Query time: 280 msec
> ;; SERVER: 192.168.1.75#53(192.168.1.75)
> ;; WHEN: Sun Apr 27 22:23:26 2003
> ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 226
>
> ######################################################
> dig melkor.zygous.co.uk mx
>
> ; <<>> DiG 9.2.1 <<>> melkor.zygous.co.uk mx
> ;; global options:  printcmd
> ;; Got answer:
> ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 13477
> ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0
>
> ;; QUESTION SECTION:
> ;melkor.zygous.co.uk.           IN      MX
>
> ;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
> zygous.co.uk.           10800   IN      SOA     dns1.easily.co.uk.
> helpdesk.easily.co.uk. 211211530 3600 604800 86400 86400
>
> ;; Query time: 99 msec
> ;; SERVER: 192.168.1.75#53(192.168.1.75)
> ;; WHEN: Sun Apr 27 22:24:50 2003
> ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 94


OK, I understand that now.  What I found odd is that I can send message fine 
through my sendmail if I telnet to it, but if I try to get KMail to send 
messages through it they bounce.  What's happening to those messages that go 
through my sendmail from KMail that isn't happening to them from telnet (or 
vice versa)?
-- 
Richard Turner

"Racing turtles, the grapefruit is winning..."


-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug