Tim: >> Hmm, this sounds familiar. Somewhere along the line of setting up >> networking on one of my boxes, it got a FQDN set where there should just >> be a hostname. Then sendmail was adding the domain name onto the end of >> that. Naturally, this didn't work. And I got some peculiar error >> messages. >> >> e.g. What happened: >> my intended hostname: machine >> my intended domain name: example.com >> >> actual hostname: machine.example.com >> actual domain name: example.com >> >> Services making up a FQDN from the given information, came up >> with: machine.example.com.example.com Chris G: > Yes, I'm pretty sure that's *exactly* my problem. > > My MUA (mutt) allows one to set the hostname for mail sent to 'name > only' users. I had (probably naively given all these problems!) set > the hostname in mutt to home.isbd.net. I don't really know Mutt. I've played with it ages ago, but found it about as dire as Pine, and I don't like text mail clients. It may be that it's Mutt you need to pay some attention to as well as your SMTP system. > If I *don't* set the hostname in mutt and send a mail to 'chris' then > (looking in maillog etc.) it appears that sendmail is appending a > hostname of home.home and the mail gets sent to chris@xxxxxxxxxx > > I think the main issue is that very few "linux at home on the desktop" > systems are set up to work as a proper domain on the internet with A > records, MX records etc. and even fewer are set up like mine as a > domain on the internet but *not* for E-Mail. Since I was doing something sort of fancy, and striking a few little oddities with some things (at least one of my mail clients wouldn't accept a mail server name without at least one dot in it, etc.), I set my system up pretty much by the book, as if the machines were all directly on the public internet. I have a real domain name, I made a sub-domain just for my LAN. I run a local DNS server, it has proper records for my LAN sub-domain in its own zone, including an MX record for my LAN mailserver. My sendmail was configured to deliver locally for my domain names (I added all the localhosts and my LAN domains to the local delivery parameters). The server /etc/aliases file lists the local username for *me* for the root mail, and that gets delivered correctly. The various client box /etc/aliases file list my e-mail address at my LAN sub-domain for their root mail, and that gets delivered centrally. Likewise, all the client boxes use my LAN sendmail as their SMTP server, and that delivers all mail centrally, whether for the LAN or the internet. One thing I don't do is have my SMTP server receive internet mail. My IP is dynamic, for one thing. And I really didn't fancy the idea of having to fight against spammers abusing it. My advice would be something similar: Configure by the book. Make sure your LAN domain names are set up right, your hostnames, too. Especially if you're using sendmail and real domain names. My guess would be that those who make faked domain names (.lan, local, etc.), probably avoid this little snafu, and sendmail delivers locally because it *can't* do it any other way (it won't find a problem causing MX record for the faked domain name). -- (This computer runs FC7, my others run FC4, FC5 & FC6, in case that's important to the thread.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
