[BUGS] Sendmail as forwarder

[John Marshall]

Jerahmy Pocott wrote:
> On 02/01/2008, at 11:31 AM, Jerahmy Pocott wrote:
> 
>> I decided to go with this option, since my sendmail.cf already
>> included the mailertable feature.. To test it I added 2 entries:
>>
>> localmachine.local.domain esmtp:[localmachine.local.domain]
>> .						  esmtp:[mail.isp.net]
>>

Your local machine name should be in Sendmail's class {w} (the default 
machine - `hostname` - name will be). Mailertable is only for domains 
which are non-local. You should remove the 'localmachine' entry.

>> and build the db file, on testing mail sent to an external domain the
>> mail is now sitting in the queue not going anywhere, mail to local
>> users is working fine. Mailq is showing:
>>
>> (Deferred: 450 4.1.8 <user at localmachine.local.domain>: Sender ad)

I'm missing something here:

- You say that local mail is working fine and yet mail to a local 
addressee is sitting in the queue "Deferred".
- You say that mail sent to an external domain is sitting in the queue 
but mailq only shows an entry for mail to a local addressee?

Does your machine resolve external domain names? If not, you'll either 
need a hosts entry for your ISP's mail relay, or you'll need to use its 
IP address instead of its domain name in /etc/mailertable.

> 
> I forgot to mention I also set the virtualusertable to contain the  
> entry:
> 
> @localmachine.local.domain	%1 at external.domain
> 
> But this mapping doesn't seem to be happening..

You have this back to front. If you want this machine to receive mail 
for fred at external.domain; and you want it delivered to local user fred; 
then you need the following in virtusertable:

fred at external.domain	fred

Or, for the wildcard behaviour which you apparently desire:

@external.domain	%1

That's assuming that mail for external.domain is somehow being routed to 
your machine in the first place; and that you "make all" in /etc/mail as 
Andy pointed out earlier.

-- 
John Marshall