Re: sendmail on a workstation

Marshall Dudley <mdudley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I am trying to get sendmail working on a FreeBSD workstation. It seems
> to want the workstation to have a working domain name, which it does
> not.

As Russell wrote, sendmail (SMTP in general) relies on hostnames being
properly resolvable. You can work around some of the requirements, but you
should _not_ directly send mail outside your network from a machine that is
not properly resolvable. It's a great way to get yourself blacklisted.

> It will be used for sending mail out only, not receiving mail.

You probably want to use the SMART_HOST or "nullclient" and MASQUERADE_AS
options. You also need at least your local host name to be resolvable
somehow. A line in hosts(5) should do it.

This is my setup:

| divert(-1)
| #
| # Sendmail configuration for fasolt.home.paeps.cx
| #
| divert(0)
|
| OSTYPE(freebsd6)
|
| FEATURE(nullclient, wotan.$m)
| MASQUERADE_AS(paeps.cx)

> Right now I have the workstation hostname of Trimark, and sendmail bounces
> any attempts to send mail out saying that the domain fails lookup if the
> From: address is left out (which when I get it working, it will not be
> blank), and nothing seems to happen if a legit From: address (The one this
> message is using) is put in.

Don't confuse the 'header' sender with the 'envelope' sender. They are very
different and serve completely different purposes. You are only changing the
header sender, about which sendmail cares very little.

> Is there a way to get sendmail to forget the domain name, or should I use my
> isp's domain name as the hostname?

You should set up sendmail as a nullclient, or configure it to use a smart
host. You can get away with a hostname only being in hosts(5), provided that
you _do_not_ send mail out directly.

> I know that it should be possible, I am sending this email with a Windows
> computer using smtp through the same ISP and router the Freebsd box is on.

Microsoft is seldom a reference for proper behaviour.

Regardless, this is not SMTP, it's NNTP or UUCP.

- Philip

--
Philip Paeps Please don't email any replies
philip@xxxxxxxx I follow the newsgroup.

BOFH Excuse #397:
T-1's congested due to porn traffic to the news server.
.

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