[ale] email email email

[Mike Murphy]

bellsouth's dns set up for mail.bellsouth.net is a little non-standard:

; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> mail.bellsouth.net
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mail.bellsouth.net.     9004    IN      A       205.152.59.17
mail.bellsouth.net.     9004    IN      A       205.152.59.16

; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> mail.bellsouth.net MX
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mail.bellsouth.net.     10800   IN      MX      0 mx01.mail.bellsouth.net.
mail.bellsouth.net.     10800   IN      MX      0 mx00.mail.bellsouth.net.

; <<>> DiG 9.2.4 <<>> mx01.mail.bellsouth.net
;; ANSWER SECTION:
mx01.mail.bellsouth.net. 1100   IN      A       205.152.59.33

So, as you can see, the machine's answering to the mail.bellsouth.net A 
record are different than the machines answering to the 
mail.bellsouth.net MX record. They do this because they want to be able 
to use 2 different sets of machines to handle incoming mail and outgoing 
mail, while using the same dns record. Strictly speaking, there is 
nothing wrong with this.

However, it requires a little trick to get sendmail (and other MTAs) to 
understand it correctly. If you put mail.bellsouth.net in brackets, ie 
[mail.bellsouth.net], in your sendmail.mc, that tells sendmail to do a 
straight lookup of the A name, instead of looking up MX's and following 
the priorities implied in those records.

In other words, try it with brackets around the servername in your 
sendmail.mc, and sendmail will work correctly.

Its a good thing too, since Bellsouth blocks port 25 *inbound*, 
preventing you from receiving mail directly from the outside world.

Mike


Adrin Story wrote:
> I hate to start this again. BUT until I get my password sent to change 
> my ale email and also look through the archives I have this age old 
> problem.
> 
> I have changed internet providers after almost 10 years with the same 
> ISP.  I was just tried of the dropped service and cost.  I wish I could 
> have used something like speedfactory or speakeasy but I am to far away 
> from the CO, by about 2,000 feet for the new higher speed connections.  
> So bellsouth it is now.    Now the questions
> 
> I was using sendmail, fetchmail and netscape to do email.   But the 
> after editing the sendmail.mc file and remaking sendmail.cf. I still 
> can't email other accounts from the command line.  So perhaps I am 
> missing something.  Thought all I had to do was change the smarthost 
> setting?  I get a bounce back
> 
> (reason: 550 .net 022: Your current IP address is not allowed to relay 
> to mindspring.com Solution: Connect using BellSouth Internet Service.)
> 
> I am assuming at this point sendmail will never work right. So I need a 
> solution.  I would like is to use my linux box as a email server LDAP? 
> Have it download email from email accounts and put them in a system user 
> account or accounts.  Then I could setup my own spam filters and blocks 
> and have family use that email account. Would help me stop bad 
> attachments in the future?
> 
> Perhaps this will move me that much closer to a PDC with SAMBA in the 
> future.
> 
> 
> by the way,  I understand that the netscape mailer works different.  I 
> can email out and my from address has the correct email address of the 
> old account.
> Adrin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale

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Mike Murphy
781 Inman Mews Drive Atlanta GA 30307
Landline: 404-653-1070
Mobile: 404-545-6234
Email: mike at tyderia.net
AIM: mmichael453
ICBM: 33:45:14.0584N  84:21:43.038W
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