Localhost or not localhost?

[BPetro]

Hi folks!

I have a situation where I am administering (best I can) a web server that is the domain name home for the AX record but NOT the MX. In other words web requests should go to this server while mail should go to another server. However if I do a send with the TO set to joe@thisdomain.com sendmail gets 'confused' and says "User unknown" - which would be true if this was the mail server but its not.

So I want sendmail to work on this linux box. And while this linux box is

http://www.thisdomain.com

- I do NOT want sendmail to think that joe@thisdomain.com get's his email here.

What configuration or other settings do I need to do to inform sendmail about this excentricity we have created here?

Thanks!

 

[Weppie]

sendmail "thinks" that it has to deliver the mail locally

use the mailertable to set up a smart relay host

thisdomain.com esmtp:therealmailserver.thisdomain.com

 

[BPetro]

Yeah - I knew that was what it was "thinking" - sorry if I didn't express that. This sounds like it might be the ticket I'll read up and see how it works. I glanced and it looks like a fit.

One question though - why does it work fine when I do command line mail send, but chokes when I do javamail sends? Any ideas on that one?

THANKS!

 

[Weppie]

Command line, it does an MX check on the domain, comes up with the proper mailserver and delivers it there. It uses the mailhub, not sendmail itself.

If you use Javamail, it delivers it for relaying to sendmail, which accepts it as local.

 

[BPetro]

Excellent! Makes sense now.