DNS must be hosed: sendmail gives "host name lookup failure"

[Igmar Palsenberg]

On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, David Brownell wrote:

> When we run `sendmail -v user at hq1.epixtech.com` from anywhere in our
> domain (epixtech.com) we get the error:
> user at hq1.epixtech.com... Deferred: Name server: hq1.epixtech.com.: host
> name lookup failure

Some things to watch :

- Use : nameserver x.x.x.x in your /etc/resolv.conf. NOT a hostname.
- Check you /etc/nsswitch.conf. Your /etc/host of NIS could be screwing
  things up.
- Add your own hostname to /etc/hosts, and also that of your
  sec. DNS. (yes, sounds stupid, but may help in some cases).

If that gives zip result, increase LogLevel to 14 in /etc/sendmail.cf, and
let syslog log mail.debug to a seperate file. (yes, on a busy mailserver
this file will be on Viagra).

> I can  `nslookup hq1` successfully and also `nslookup hq1.epixtech.com`
> successfully.  
> 
> The resolv.conf file on the mail exchanger is pointing to our secondary
> DNS.  If we point it to an external DNS non-domain related (i.e., an
> ISP) DNS it works (but i'm not sure for how long since whatever we
> screwed up will be propogated...)

Does nslookup your.secondary.ns work ?

> We've checked all the zone files and all /appears/ proper.
> 
> We're running BIND 8.2.2 and SENDMAIL 8.9.3.  We are currrently using
> our DNS box as our mail exchanger. 
> 
> I would appreciate any suggestions as to where I might look!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> David Brownell
> 
> P.S.  email would probably be pointless, since sendmail isn't working
> properly!
> 
> 
>