Sendmail complains about server name

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sat, Sep 27, 2003 at 10:19:29AM -0500, lrnobs wrote:
> I just installed FreeBSD 4.8.  The screen that asks for ip addresses and
> server name required me to type in a server name of "some sort".  I put in
> BSDSRVR1 as the name.  That screen was content with the answer, but each
> time I start the computer SENDMAIL complains that the name is no good and
> then "sleeps" two or three times before trying again.  It eventually
> continues and boots ok.
> 
> I was adding a user and one of the prompts wanted to send an initial email
> to the user.  I accepted the default yes.   SENDMAIL again complained about
> the name I chose and went to sleep again for a minute.  I hit a key and was
> able to continue.
> 
> This is an internal SAMBA server so I don't have a name of the style
> www.xxxxxxx like I saw in the example.
> 
> What is it that it doesn't like?

It's exactly the fact that you don't have a name like 'foo.bar.int'
with dots in it, funnilly enough.

sendmail(8) really, really wants to be able to look itself up in the
DNS -- after all, in order for anyone to send you e-mail across the
internet, you've got to be able to be found in the DNS...

Now, clearly this is an internal mail server, so you don't actually
need to enter your servers' name into any sort of DNS.  (Although
running an internal DNS is actually a pretty useful thing to do, and
not as hard as you might think.)  But you will need to invent a domain
style name -- something like 'bsdsrv1.mydomain.internal' and enter
that into /etc/hosts. You should put it on the same line as the
'bsdsrv1' -- something like:

    192.168.0.1     bsdsrv1 bsdsrv1.mydomain.internal

This will mean that your internal e-mails will default to
'username at bsdsrv1.mydomain.internal', but that is something you can
tweak the sendmail configuration to change.

Note that the hostname on Unix systems is not case sensitive, and is
traditionally all lower case.  It's also the case that the Netbios
name that a windows machine may use need have nothing to do with the
actual hostname, although it does get very confusing if you don't
synchronise the different names.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
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
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20030927/a289e278/attachment.bin