Michael B. Trausch wrote:
>
> On Mon, 17 May 1999, JF wrote:
> >
> > sendmail is driving me round the BEND!! I can't send mail!
> >
> LOL... Okay, let's see if I can help you out at all.
You're helping!!
> > I'm not even sure that sendmail is my basic problem! :-X But it
> > certainly is something I want to learn.
> >
>
> Alrighty -- what are you trying to configure sendmail to do?
Okay -- don't laugh -- okay? SEND MY MAIL!! <LOL>
update:!! After reading and replying to your last message, I went back
to pine and took out my isp's smtp address and viola! -- sendmail is now
working!! (or at least my mail is going out! (I'm testing receiving and
sending back and forth with another address via netscape messenger.)
After failing to send with pine (previous to this), and using mailq and
sendmail to chech to queues and trying to get sendmail to send it from
the command-line, I now have a new lease on life! :-)
But my mail problems have yet to completely evaporate.
> I'm
> wondering... is this computer using a dial-up internet line, is it
> permanently connected to the Internet...? Static or Dynamic IP? (It all
> does make a difference! :-)
dynamic. (changes every damn time I use it!)
> > > Make sure pine uses localhost as
> > > the SMTP server, and you're done configuring. ;) It's not that hard, and
> > > it's pretty darned efficient.
> >
> > Oh! Damn! I should've come back and read your e-mail again! I missed
> > that! OKay -- I'll try that! Why didn't any of the documentation tell
> > me that?!?
> >
>
> One of the things about using localhost as the SMTP server is that you
> don't have to wait for Pine (or whatever other mail program that you use)
> to transfer the mail to the server before you get back to the program.
For now I've got it empty but it's in my plans to try this. Sounds like
a good idea. To WHAT server would it be sending if I had it blank? EAch
recipient's?
> If
> you use localhost, then what happens, is the program like Pine sends the
> mail to sendmail on your computer. Sendmail then figures out how to route
> the e-mail so that it gets to it's destination. Then it passes it to the
> next computer. The next computer determines the route and then sends it.
> It goes like that until the mail reaches the destination computer.
You mean I'm NOT using SENDMAIL (on my box) if I don't specify localhost
and have it blank?
> > Since I'm not (yet)(one thing at a time) setting up mail for other local
> > users, will I need any aliases other than what are already in the
> > aliases file? I'm using redhat 5.2 with sendmail 8.8.7-2 I think. I
> > d/l'd 8.8.9-3 I think it is but it's not an rpm and I'm nore sure that's
> > the solution to my problem. I've been desperately trying everything but
> > all the while suspecting that the solution is simple and right in front
> > of my nose and I can't find it!
> There are two things that I'll say about this one: If you're using a
> dial-up connection and a dynamic IP address, then you will not be able to
> send mail from any system account other than the one whose username
> matches the ISP login. Example, my ISP login name is mtrausch. So, on my
> home computer, I have to use the mtrausch account to send mail. Doing
> otherwise would allow them to presume that you're trying to mimick others
> on the network, and that's a no-no.
You have somehow divined my next and current big problem! I cain't get
pine to take a user-id .... as it so kindly explains that thing before
the @ -- or words to that effect. So I was getting (from
pine-originated mailmessages) user-id for real name and then my local
username for my e-mail address user id --- which doesn't work. I was
able to send. but when I replied -- well, it mustsa gone to somebody's
bit-bucket.
Seems a bit inconvenient to have to match local user names with with
existing e-mail user-id's. One such address is shared between an
employee and me. (Small company -- one e-mail address for the company
at this point.) Dunno why using my e-mail address and not having it
match my local name would make other think I'm trying to mimick others.
Let's say I want to access the same e-mail account from 2 different
machines on a LAN or also from my remote computer with which one day
soon hopefully I'll be able to do dialup networking with the office.
This means I have to have users by the same name -- at least on my
remote computer and an office computer to access that e-mail account.
Can 2 of the same user names exist on a lan? Or. can 2 users -- both
use a user-id and home-dir at different or perhaps even the same times?
I suppose it's mickey-mouse to have only one e-mail account, but I need
to monitor the account and access it even if I did have different
accounts. Wouldn't solve the problem!
So anyway, I see that I now -- unless sendmail masquerading or some
other solution exists -??- that I'll have to create a local user account
matching my user-id of each e-mail account I have! -- and do this on
each machine for each account I want to access from that machine. :-X
> However, if this computer is a computer that's permanently connected to
> the Internet, has it's own domain and everything, then you can do whatever
> the heck you want to. :^)
I see -- you mean I can create what ever and as many user-id's I want
and do not depend on establishing them with an isp?
> > > Fetchmail and procmail do NOT do the same thing. Fetchmail works with
> > > sendmail which works with procmail. It's a chain. :)
> >
> > This I DID remember from your message and it was VERY helpful. This is
> > the kind of general perspective I was missing. I successfully set up
> > fetchmail -- no problem! :-) HAven't gotten into procmail yet. I hope
> > I'm not doing this out of sequence but it seemed to me I really need
> > sendmail. I explored for other alternatives and there don't seem to be
> > any for console e-mail. sendmail seems to be IT. <?> I'm eager to
> > demystify it but I'm not finding a good entry point yet. They all seem
> > to start in the middle.
> >
>
> Well, IMHO, there is no "sequence" to configuring things. Tweak as you'd
> like. :) One of the things is that sendmail is not for console mail.
> It's for all electronic mail that passes through your computer system.
> There are a few different jobs that sendmail does:
>
> - When a user sends mail from pine or another UNIX client,
> sendmail takes that mail and begins the transportation
> process.
I'm confused here --- isn't pine mail "console mail"?
And you mean the sendmail on that sending user's machine -- right?
> - Depending on your setup, either fetchmail, or a sendmail
> from another machine sends a mail to the computer, and
> the local sendmail then takes the mail, and gives it to
> procmail. Procmail, by the way, is what's called the
> "delivery agent," in other words, it finds the mailbox
> that a mail message is supposed to go to. You can set
> up procmail so that it rejects messages, forwards mess-
> ages, or does whatever you want, basically.
that's cool and makes sense. BTW, is procmail the tool for
auto-responding as well?
> - If your computer is permanently connected on the Internet,
> and there are computers behind it on the network, then
> sometimes, when another sendmail contacts your computer on
> the Internet, your computer will look at the address and
> say, "Hey... This mail is not for any of my users," and it
> will look to pass the email on to another computer on your
> network.
what agent on my computer would be doing this?
> > be missing something really basic here as indicated by your advice to
> > use localhost as the smtp server. (now that I'm in linux I can bypass
> > my mailhost's smtp services to SEND and still use their
> > myhostname@theirdomain as my reply to: / from: address?!?
>
> Yes, you can. There is one line in /etc/sendmail.cf that you need to
> change that needs to reflect the hostname of whatever mail system that you
> are sending as.
you mean my isp's domainname? can you tell me what line? masquerading
perhaps?
> Take note, however, if you're sending from network A, and
> you're using the address of network B, some spam filters may say, "Wait a
> minute, this came from network A, but it says that it's from network B,"
> and it may get confused and just plain reject it. Be careful how you set
> it up.
okay -- though I haven't a clue at this point.
> > I see no option in pine to specify a different reply to address.
>
> You can't. You can change the part after the @ sign if you'd like,
> though.
Well, I can in netscape messenger and any other gui e-mailer (windows,
os/2 etc.) I've ever seen. What's the distinction that causes this
inflexibility?
Is netscape using sendmail to transport?
> > And in sendmail I see no place where I would supply a password for the
> > smtp host. I don't need one?
> >
>
> No! SMTP doesn't use passwords!
I was beginning to suspect as much. thanks.
> > You can tell I'm sure that I'm really confused and missing something
> > very basic.
> >
>
> That's quite alright. One of the things is that there is many levels of
> things yet for you to leran. Just as long as you're patient about it, and
> you're willing to learn, then you can do just about anything with Linux.
> :-)
Yeah -- I'm loving learning about it. But it's taking me a LONG time to
set it up. By and by I'm getting a functional system. But after 4 months
of using linux I'm still not fully migrated out of NT. but I've got
communication scripts, dialup networking, database stuff to sort out --
not to mention finding basic apps for word-processing, graphics and the
like. And I'm still working on basic stuff -- such as the e-mail
problems we're talking about. But I'm blown away with how stable and
un-bloated linux is compared to windows -- and how much seems to be
available already. Quite different than the dirth of apps that I didn't
find in OS/2 in my pre-NT days. One other key thing for me is getting
ftape working. That'll make it safer to migrate.
> One of the things about UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems is that
> they're based on something called "open standards." Open standards help
> to get the world on its feet and running. If we didn't have open
> standards, we wouldn't have things like SMTP, the UNIX mailbox format, or
> simple hardware protocols.
Yes! And isn't the opposite the proprietary urge to snare us in such as
Microsoft and others have been running on us?
> > > > And are these formats compatible with netscape --
> > > > which I'm currently using for my own mail in imap mode (until I can get
> > > > ftape or some type of backup working in linux).
> > >
> > > They're all compatable with everything. Linux uses standardized formats.
> > > That's the beauty of it.
> >
> > Love it!
> >
>
> Gotta love it, eh? It sure does make things MANY times easier when you're
> administering a system that isn't all that complicated. :-)
Yep! I can conceive of it though it's not yet a reality for me since so
much is still new and I have so much to learn. I sure do like the linux
way of configuring things compared to the win registry database way.
> No problem. It's called, don't be shy and ask a lot of questions. That's
> the best way to learn things :-).
Well, I appreciate your advice to do so -- and, as you can see from the
above, I yam! :-)
Jamie Faunt
