Trying to send external mail to a local sendmail box

[Kevin Darcy]

No MX record exists in the Internet DNS for either somedomain.com or
ion.somedomain.com, so either a) you used a fake domain name (or one that
you *thought* was fake, but actually exists), in which case, how do you
expect anyone to help you troubleshoot this problem?, or b) you messed up
the DNS entry.

Offhand, it looks like the MX records for somedomain.com and/or
ion.somedomain.com may point to non-Internet-reachable addresses, but
without a real domain name, I can't verify anything.


- Kevin

nsyte wrote:

> I need some help. I am running sendmail on a local machine
> (ion.somedomain.com) separated by a packet filtering firewall
> (gateway.somedomain.com), and I have an external DNS (authoritative for
> somedomain.com). The DNS MX records point to gateway; gateway forwards
> all port 25 traffic to ion.
>
> Because the mail servers of the world will not accept mail from a non-
> existent host, I set up the external DNS records to alias ion to
> gateway. Now I can successfully send mail out.
>
> I can telnet to port 25 of ion and manually construct a mail session;
> however, when I address mail from an external client to
> user at somedomain.com or user at ion.somedomain.com, I get the messages
> below.
>
> It does not appear that the mail is getting past gateway. Do I have the
> DNS set up correctly? I cannot point the MX records to anything besides
> gateway. It should forward mail traffic to ion, right?
>
> Where is the problem?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> (to user at ion.somedoman.com)
>
> The original message was received at Sun, 12 Mar 2000 01:29:46 -0600
> (CST)from ccis01.baylor.edu [129.62.1.18]
>
>    ----- The following addresses had transient non-fatal errors -----
> <user at gateway.somedomain.com>
>
>    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> <user at gateway.somedomain.com>... Deferred: Connection timed out with
> gateway.somedomain.com.
> Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> (to user at somedomain.com)
>
> The original message was received at Sat, 11 Mar 2000 14:26:50 -0600
> (CST) from ccis01.baylor.edu [129.62.1.18]
>
>    ----- The following addresses had transient non-fatal errors -----
> <user at somedomain.com>
>
>    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> <user at somedomain.com>... Deferred: Connection timed out with
> gateway.somedomain.com.
> Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
> Will keep trying until message is 5 days old
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.