:::. Sendmail on FreeBSD -> Deferred: Operation timed out with <server>

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2006-05-19 22:50, Giorgos Keramidas <keramida at ceid.upatras.gr> wrote:
> I see.  Does the nameserver at 192.168.0.1 reply with correct data for
> the `hospitaldeninos.cl' domain?  It seems that your Sendmail gets
> `mail.hospitaldeninos.cl' as the primary MX for that domain from
> somewhere, but it isn't obvious from these files where the wrong reply
> comes from.

Hmmm, maybe I know why DNS resolution fails:

    $ uname -a
    Linux XXXX 2.6.10 #1 Thu Dec 30 03:01:16 EET 2004 i686 GNU/Linux
    $ host nt_sql_server2.hospitaldeninos.cl 200.31.44.1
    nt_sql_server2.hospitaldeninos.cl       A       200.29.150.147
     !!! nt_sql_server2.hospitaldeninos.cl A record has illegal name
    $ host nt_sql_server2.hospitaldeninos.cl 200.31.43.33
    nt_sql_server2.hospitaldeninos.cl       A       200.29.150.147
     !!! nt_sql_server2.hospitaldeninos.cl A record has illegal name
    $

The hostname contains underscores, which is not a legal character for a
hostname.  This way *SOME* systems fail to resolve this hostname and
fall back to using mail.hospitaldeninos.cl as the MX for this domain.

But that system doesn't reply to SMTP connections at all.

Hence the email failures.

So, there are two problems here:

	* The primary MX has an invalid character in its hostname.

	* The secondary MX is not-working at all.

I think this explains why your Sendmail is complaining about being
unable to deliver email to that domain.