Outgoing email intermittant. Could this be a sendmail problem?

[camorgan]

I recently set up a PERL/CGI forum on my host (I am not the host) and it requires that a registrant provide a legit email for an activation code to be sent to.

Testing this, if I register an account at Yahoo, the activation code arrives immediately. However, if I register with my ISP or even my site host, I've yet to receive it (after two hours) Some users got an email after 24 hours.

I noticed at the support forum for the Forum software, another admin is having a similar problem and, you guessed it, they have the same host.

My basic question is, is this something that could be going wrong with the host or their sendmail setup? I'd like to know so I can email them and have them rectify it. Otherwise, I'm going to assume I'm having a problem on my end in the forum code.

Thanks for feedback in advance.

 

[RhythmAce]

The short answer is, I don't know. (Read further to see my long answer) Without knowing how the script's mail function is setup or knowing how the smtp server is setup on your host, it would be very hard to say. Since you get mail to some accounts, you should be able to rule out your forum script. If you check the header on the mail you received, you will more than likely see that the user is apache@yourhostsdomain. The host will be localhost.localdomain unless they are using masuerading. Don't get hung up on this. My point is, if your e-mail addy is you@yourhostsdomain.com and the dns query shows the mail looping back, the mail will get refered or delayed and put in the mqueue. This will usually happen if the mail server is setup to only 'relay_based_on_MX'. Your best bet is to contact your host and let them know of the problem and they should be able to tell you if it is their server or not, or at least tell you how you need to configure the mail function of your script.

 

[camorgan]

My host is a UNIX based host so SMTP isn't a factor (?)

As for my header info, I sent an email to myself to see what info it provided, here it is:

----------
Return-Path: <camorgan@outpost31.com>
Delivered-To: outpost31-com-camorgan@outpost31.com
Received: (qmail 22857 invoked from network); 3 Feb 2003 02:04:32 -0000
Received: from dc-mx01.cluster1.charter.net (209.225.8.11)
by 217.204.37.200 with SMTP; 3 Feb 2003 02:04:32 -0000
Received: from [66.169.148.33] (HELO Daffy)
by dc-mx01.cluster1.charter.net (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 3.5.9)
with SMTP id 42111511 for camorgan@outpost31.com; Sun, 02 Feb 2003 20:42:41 -0500
From: &quot;camorgan@outpost#31&quot; <camorgan@outpost31.com>
To: <camorgan@outpost31.com>
Subject: test
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 19:42:44 -0600
Message-ID: <000001c2cb25$8c429f00$c901a8c0@Morgan>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=&quot;iso-8859-1&quot;
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0)
Importance: Normal
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200
------------


I'm pretty new to all this so I'm not sure what to look for on the &quot;looping back&quot; problem. If I could actually get the thing to send from the forum, maybe it'd reveal something more.

Also, I found that the other person with a similar problem is NOT on the same host so I lost a little certainty I had triangulated the problem.


Thanks for the help on this.

 

[camorgan]

with my host, unless I tell them, more or less, what to look at, they won't do it. If you can help me word what exactly to tell them, I'd thank you endlessly.