Sluggers
I/We have setup a sendmail server that processes internet email via
forwarding it to some *nix and exchange servers. This server is also our
main SMTP hub so internal mail from our *nix servers destined for exchange
(and visa/versa) also go through it.
A problem showed up yesterday. We had troubles with our DNS provider
(Optus), both their servers went off the air for a period of time (I
think the problem was best summed up by someone at optus support as
"The DNS server(s) had their head up each others arse") and basically
caused all sort of problems. (The problem was/can be reproduced
by disconnecting our internet link)
What happened next was that all internal SMTP mail (*nix <--> *nix) and
(*nix <--> exchange) was failing because their was no DNS lookup
available.
Our internal server are NOT included in the ZONE file at optus, but they
are defined in the /etc/hosts file.
It appears that our sendmail was always attemping to lookup internal name
using DNS rather that using the values specified in /etc/hosts,
irrespective of the settings used.
The question is: What option/feature could I include into a sendmail
configuration that will resolve local machines always using /etc/hosts (or
an equivalent sendmail db) instead of attempting to be resolved (wrongly)
via DNS.
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Peter Worboys
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