NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/comp/unix/ultrix/8920

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-17 | 1.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!psinntp!lupine!mellon
From: [e-mail] (Ted Lemon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: Mail refuses to talk to itselfes
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 16 Dec 92 18:56:48 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: Network Computing Devices, Inc.
Lines: 28
Nntp-Posting-Host: pepper
In-reply-to: [e-mail]'s message of 10 Dec 92 08:02:56 GMT


><<< 553 htlulx.htl-bw.ch I refuse to talk to myself

What this means is that your sendmail, after parsing an address,
decided to deliver mail via SMTP to itself.   The listener realized
that it was getting an SMTP connection from itself and blew it off in
order to avoid an endless loop.

One common cause of this problem is copying a frozen sendmail.cf from
another machine - a sendmail running with such a frozen configuration
will think it's the other machine, and therefore try to deliver mail
that should be local via smtp.   Refreezing the sendmail.cf could
solve your problem - ``/usr/lib/sendmail -bz''.

Or, perhaps your host has multiple names, and doesn't recognize all of
them.   For example, if you have an MX or a CNAME pointing at it, or
if its hostname is fully-qualified and the sendmail.cf doesn't know
how to deal with the unqualified hostname, then it could try to
deliver mail that should be local via SMTP.   If that's the case, try
sending mail to each of the possible valid addresses and see which one
bounces.   Then, hack your sendmail.cf to recognize that address as
local.   (I know, a tall order...)

                   _MelloN_
--
[e-mail]                        uunet!lupine!mellon
Member of the League for Programming Freedom - to find out how software
patents may cost you your right to program, contact [e-mail]