summary (mail to non-existing host)

From: Nadya Williams (nadya@bog.ucsd.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 14 1997 - 13:57:40 CST


I've got 2 answers to my original query:

> I am looking for a possible rerouting of incoming mail. Some (non-local)
> users still send their mail to the local users on a machine that no longer
> exists. The machine that gets errors about non-delivered
> mail is a NIS master, IPX with SunOS 4.1.3, and an original old sendmail
> version.
> Installing sendmail 8.8.4 is not an option since I will move the server
> to Solaris pretty soon. Is there a way, aside from collecting the addresses
> from the postmaster mail, that will automatically notify people who are
> still trying to send mail to a dead host?

I used the first one and it worked fine.
Thanks to both responders.
N. Williams.

1. From bergman@phri.nyu.edu
I don't know of any way to notify users about the wrong address
(bounce messages that say "host unknown" work well for me :). You
might want to set up sendmail so that it _accepts_ mail for the dead
host, sending/delivering it correctly.

You need to tell sendmail that the mailserver (which thinks it's
name1) should accept mail for machines name1 and name2.

In your sendmail.cf file:
        # Define class "w" to equal all aliases of your host
        Cwname1.x.y.z name1 name2.x.y.z name2

If you're adding a lot of other hosts, or your setting up a mail hub
machine, you may want to keep the "host aliases" in a file. Put the
following in your sendmail.cf:
        Fw/etc/mail/clientlist
where /etc/mail/clientlist is a list of host names, one per line. I
use that for all the desktop (PC and Mac) machines that rely on our
mail hub. This way, if someone mistakenly re-sets their "Reply-To:"
address to include the name of their desktop machine instead of just
the domian name (ie: they use snoopy@peanuts.phri.nyu.edu instead of
the correct snoopy@phri.nyu.edu), the mail hub will recognize and
accept mail for "snoopy".

2. From ca@mine.informatik.uni-kiel.de
Just install an MX record:
dead.host. IN MX 10 mailserver.domain.
and tell the mailserver to accept mail for dead.host.
(Usually Cwdead.hosts. but on the Sun maybe it works if the
domain is the same).
If you want to notify them, you have to write a script (.forward/
procmail).



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