SUMMARY: Sendmail and DNS

From: J.R. Lee (jrl@adc.idt.com)
Date: Tue Jul 20 1999 - 12:55:14 CDT


Thanks to F.M. Taylor, Todd Herr, wolt@igd.fhg.de, and Matt Reynolds!!

I got rid of the SYSERR(root) error by doing what F.M. Taylor said by adding
the hostnames to the sendmail.cw file.

The other errors are still there but from what F.M. Taylor said these are
normal.

The original question and all responces follow....

Thanks again...

ORIGINAL QUESTION:
------------------
I am having a problem with one of our servers which has both sendmail and
DNS on it.

uname -a:
    SunOS sfo 5.6 Generic_105181-05 sun4m sparc SUNW,SPARCstation-20

Here are some of the errors I am getting in the /var/adm/messages file.

Jun 22 17:27:04 sfo sendmail[10551]: RAA10549: SYSERR(root): MX list for bge.adc
.idt.com. points back to adc.idt.com
Jun 22 17:30:56 sfo sendmail[10637]: RAA10635: SYSERR(root): MX list for bge.adc
.idt.com. points back to adc.idt.com
Jun 22 17:39:35 sfo sendmail[10783]: RAA10781: SYSERR(root): MX list for bge.adc
.idt.com. points back to adc.idt.com
Jun 22 17:47:57 sfo sendmail[11036]: RAA11034: SYSERR(root): MX list for bge.adc
.idt.com. points back to adc.idt.com
Jun 23 08:50:52 sfo named[163]: sysquery: no addrs found for root NS (ns4.netcet
era.dk)
Jun 23 15:15:26 sfo named[163]: sysquery: no addrs found for root NS (NS01.KODAK
.COM.AU)
Jun 25 04:57:57 sfo named[163]: sysquery: no addrs found for root NS (Thuban.AC.
hmc.edu)
Jun 25 04:57:57 sfo named[163]: sysquery: no addrs found for root NS (Ymir.Clare
mont.edu)
Jun 25 04:57:57 sfo named[163]: sysquery: no addrs found for root NS (a.cs.OKSta
te.edu)

RESPONCES:
----------

****
From: "F.M. Taylor" <root@uranium.indstate.edu>
This is because bge.adc.idt.com. is not listed in your sendmail.cw
>From sendmail.cf:

# file containing names of hosts for which we receive email
#Fw/etc/mail/sendmail.cw

And the named errors are normal (named can't find the remote nameservers
as listed by the internic) you can safely ignore them, unless they are
yours.
****
From: Todd Herr <herrt@hankhill.iisd.sra.com>
   http://www.sendmail.org/faq/section4.html#4.5
****
From: wolt@igd.fhg.de
OK, first thing to check is whether you have a `mailhost' entry in your
/etc/hosts. So something like this

 127.0.0.1 localhost
 192.168.42.42 rustbucket loghost mailhost

(names and addresses changed to protect the innocent, if you want to really
make sure you can also add mailhost.your.domain in /etc/hosts - but it's
not necessary in case you have DNS)

Next, make sure your DNS is set up correctly. Do NOT use CNAME records for
a mail server! These must be canonical. Do not add an MX record for the
mail server. Do have MX records for all clients pointing to your
server. You can check this using Solaris' nslookup (enter interactive
mode, verify domain and host MX redirection):

 nslookup -
 set type=mx
 your.domain

which should yield something like

 your.domain preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail.your.domain
 your.domain nameserver = ns.your.domain
 mail.your.domain internet address = 192.168.42.42
 ns.your.domain internet address = 192.168.42.41

Also check individual hosts this way.

Same thing for BIND's dnsquery with flag `t MX'.

     hope that helps.

****
From: Matt Reynolds <Matt.Reynolds@aztek-eng.com>
1. Is the 'hosts' line in /etc/nsswitch.conf file contain the dns entry
(and uncommented) ?
2. Do you have your dns server in the /etc/resolv.conf file ?
3. Is your default gateway set ?
****

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
 J.R. Lee                               email: jrl@adc.idt.com  
 System Administrator                   phone: 678-775-2947    



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