On 20 May 2001, Ed Robitaille wrote:
> I am trying to configure 'sendmail'. ( could be a life-long quest )
> I am a home user who dials into a local ISP.
> Does anyone have a **simple*** ????.mc file ?
For your average home user who has a transient, attended, dynamic IP dial-up
account, Sendmail is really the wrong choice. The "standard" Sendmail
configurations (which the M4 files generate) generally assume your system is
in the DNS. While you could probably program Sendmail to do the Right Thing
for all modes of operation, the effort would not be worth it.
Depending on the program you plan to use and how you want your mail stored,
you probably want something like this:
(1) Local mail (e.g., system messages to "root") sent and delivered locally
(2) Retrieve mail from your ISP account(s), store in your local login account
(3) Mail to the "outside" sent via your ISP's SMTP relay server
The first should be easy; every major distribution performs this way "out of
the box" (often using Sendmail, but you really don't care how it happens).
The second and third depend on what mail program you are using (or plan to
use). Some, such as Netscape Communicator or KMail, have client
implementations of the necessary network mail protocols built in. In that
case, use those, and point them to your ISP mail servers. This bypasses local
system mail configuration entirely (likely a Good Thing).
Pine, another popular choice, can use your SMTP relay for sending, but reads
your local Unix mailbox. This also works out well; you can use a program
called "fetchmail" to retrieve your mail from your ISP and dump it into your
local Unix mailbox. The manual page is quite good, configuration simple, and
there is also a "fetchmailconf" GUI program which will configure fetchmail for
you. If you need help with fetchmail, give a yell.
If you want to use a mail program which requires a working "sendmail" for
mail delivery, you are in a bad situation. You can quickly hack Sendmail into
working for this situation, but it will really be a nasty kludge, and you
might be better off looking into an alternate MTA or MUA. (Either that, or
finding a Sendmail God who understands the Sendmail configuration file
language well enough to generate a wholly different program.)
Still here? Al-right, but don't say I didn't warn you. :-) First, the
user account you use to send mail has to match the user account name on your
ISP. In other words, if your email address is <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, you
have to send mail as <erobitaille> as well. Then, use a .mc file that looks
something like this:
OSTYPE(`linux')
MAILER(smtp)
MASQUERADE_AS(`eagle1st.com')
FEATURE(`masquerade_envelope')
define(`SMART_HOST', `smtp-relay.eagle1st.com')
FEATURE(`accept_unresolvable_domains')
Note that the above ignores security settings which are distribution
specific (such as the user ID to run untrusted mailers as). Also, you need to
replace the "smtp-relay" part with the appropriate server name of your ISP's
SMTP relay (AKA "outgoing mail server").
To the list: Any of the proponents of the various other MTAs know if their
chosen favorite handles this situation better than Sendmail?
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
| The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not |
| necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or |
| organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. |
**********************************************************
To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the
*body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter:
unsubscribe gnhlug
**********************************************************
