chuckbeats
asked on
Sendmail Relaying to wrong host
We have a problem with sendmail relaying to the wrong host. Some how it is relaying to "gateway.domain.com" instead of "mail.domain.com"
The smart host is "mail.domain.com" there is no mention of gateway. The only thing I can think of is that gateway.domain.com is the MX record for mail.domain.com
This works fine obviously for mail going to our domain from this server, but it tries to relay all mail - even to other domains - to gateway.domain.com.
Any suggestions on where to start looking? I am completely lost. Let me know if you need more info. Two typical log entries are below. One to our domain and one to another domain. Obviously the second one to the other domain is rejected by our gateway server as an invalid domain.
Our Domain:
Jul 6 14:38:06 quark sendmail[1578]: n66FKT1Q005730: to=<lindamagazzine@domain.
Other Domain:
Jul 6 14:38:06 quark sendmail[1578]: n66FF71Q005698: to=<billiearnold817@domain
The smart host is "mail.domain.com" there is no mention of gateway. The only thing I can think of is that gateway.domain.com is the MX record for mail.domain.com
This works fine obviously for mail going to our domain from this server, but it tries to relay all mail - even to other domains - to gateway.domain.com.
Any suggestions on where to start looking? I am completely lost. Let me know if you need more info. Two typical log entries are below. One to our domain and one to another domain. Obviously the second one to the other domain is rejected by our gateway server as an invalid domain.
Our Domain:
Jul 6 14:38:06 quark sendmail[1578]: n66FKT1Q005730: to=<lindamagazzine@domain.
Other Domain:
Jul 6 14:38:06 quark sendmail[1578]: n66FF71Q005698: to=<billiearnold817@domain
ASKER
All of this looks good. It is just emails sent from the local root using Perl cronjobs.
All of a sudden, they are all relaying to our MX record which is nowhere to be found in any configuration. It is connecting to our gateway (MX) directly from this server, so it is almost like this server is acting as its own MTA, which would be fine, but it cannot send to any domain but ours.
Any other suggestions? Thanks for the help
All of a sudden, they are all relaying to our MX record which is nowhere to be found in any configuration. It is connecting to our gateway (MX) directly from this server, so it is almost like this server is acting as its own MTA, which would be fine, but it cannot send to any domain but ours.
Any other suggestions? Thanks for the help
"This works fine obviously for mail going to our domain from this server, but it tries to relay all mail - even to other domains - to gateway.domain.com."
That is exactly how the smart host setting works. You'll probably want to look into use the /etc/mail/mailertable database and ditch the smarthost option. This allows you specify a domain (yours) and tell it exactly what IP/host to send to regardless of the MX record:
yourdomain.com esmtp:[10.1.1.1]
Just change the IP to that of the server you want it to relay to for that domain. You can do as many domains as you want, if you have more than 1. You can use a DNS name there too, but try to avoid it if possible to save yourself a lookup every time. Don't forget to rebuild the map and restart sendmail.
That is exactly how the smart host setting works. You'll probably want to look into use the /etc/mail/mailertable database and ditch the smarthost option. This allows you specify a domain (yours) and tell it exactly what IP/host to send to regardless of the MX record:
yourdomain.com esmtp:[10.1.1.1]
Just change the IP to that of the server you want it to relay to for that domain. You can do as many domains as you want, if you have more than 1. You can use a DNS name there too, but try to avoid it if possible to save yourself a lookup every time. Don't forget to rebuild the map and restart sendmail.
ASKER
OK, I looked and that seems to be the right track, but this fires off email to all kinds of different domains. They are for customer reports, so there is no way me to enter all the domains.
What could have happened that all of a sudden yahoo.com emails are being relayed to our MX record. More importantly, how can I change that. Thanks in advance
What could have happened that all of a sudden yahoo.com emails are being relayed to our MX record. More importantly, how can I change that. Thanks in advance
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
No I didn't know what SMART_HOST was until about 4 hours ago :) I've removed it and we are looking better. I'll need to setup something to keep these from getting trapped by spam filters (since it is not one of our mail servers ) - but at least we are back up and sending. Thanks for your help.
Check the /etc/sendmail/access file to see if you have relaying rules setup
Unless you have an old version of Sendmail, relaying should be disabled by defualt, review the following page and see if you are allowing relaying for a reason and perhaps it just needs to be reconfigured.
http://www.sendmail.org/m4/anti_spam.html