sendmail to a smarthost?

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sun, Feb 08, 2004 at 09:31:10PM +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
> Hello. In my LAN the DNS server is my ADSL modem ... small device that 
> cannot do MX type of address lookup. I wish to configure a fax server 
> (FreeBSD 5.2 + Hylafax) in the LAN to send emails to a group of people upon 
> receiving fax. The problem is hylafax fax server can only use sendmail to 
> send fax notification, but sendmail can send out emails only when it knows 
> receipiant's MX ip.
> 
> The only way I can think of is to let sendmail send mails by using my ISP's 
> smtp server (need login). But I read sendmail(8), I didn't find how to 
> configure sendmail to do this, nor did I find such information on the 
> handbook. I'm not familiar with sendmail config.

Setting up a smarthost is simple. Just do the following:

    # cd /etc/mail
    # make              (this will create a file `hostname`.mc if 
                         it doesn't already exist)
    # vi `hostname`.mc

Modify the line to remove the comment (dnl) and put in your ISP's
smart host:

    dnl define(`SMART_HOST', `your.isp.mail.server')

so that it reads:

    define(`SMART_HOST', `smtp.example.com')

Note the distinction between the left hand (`) and right hand (') side
quote marks.

Save the results.  Now process those into a sendmail configuration
file and install them and restart sendmail as follows:

    # make install
    # make restart-mta

In order to suppress sendmail doing DNS lookups for MX records, you
should be able to use the standard sendmail feature of putting the
hostname in [square brackets].  This may or may not work -- you'll
have to do some experiments.  First of all try putting the square
brackets into the SMART_HOST define above:

   define(`SMART_HOST', `[smtp.example.com]') 

If that doesn't work, you can try using the mailertable functionality.
Create a file /etc/mail/mailertable containing the line:

    .        relay:[smtp.example.com]

and process that into a .db format hashed file by:

    # make



-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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