Sendmail Config

sancho5 · 09-15-2001, 02:11 PM

Greetings all,
Could some kind soul provide me with an end-all, be-all config guide for Sendmail? I've taken a peek at the conf file and find it ugly; so help would be appreciated!

sancho5 · 09-15-2001, 02:14 PM

P.S.,
I'd be looking for immediately post installation to basic config steps, maybe something related to DNS record setup as well.

jharris · 09-15-2001, 03:42 PM

Even admins with lots of Unix and sendmail experience have a battle getting sendmail running how they want! If you are just going for basic functionallity you might want to look at this bit of the NAG - http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/nag/node241.html. For anything more serious I'd advise you get a copy of O'Reilly's Sendmail book, the details are "Sendmail, By Bryan Costales & Eric Allman; ISBN 1-56592-222-0, 1050 pages."

The DNS issue is seperate - have a look for documentation on setting up BIND, specifically http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/DNS-HOWTO.html

good luck

Jamie...

sancho5 · 09-15-2001, 03:50 PM

Thanks much for the reference. Should be a fun project..
For reference, the only records that need to be set up for the host are MX, or do I need to configure an A record also for the individual host?
Thx

jharris · 09-15-2001, 03:54 PM

I'm not sure I completely follow the question...

If you are setting up a mail relay for a domain, and you want to send email to user@mydomain.net and not to specific machines (i.e. user@somemachine.mydomain.net) then you'll want one or more MX records setup, and if you are going to have this then you'll need your own DNS somewhere so you'll want an A record for every host in your domain anyway, afterall thats whats DNS is for!

Or have I just answered a completely different question??

cheers

Jamie...

sancho5 · 09-15-2001, 04:01 PM

To verify, I'm wondering whether I need only an 'MX' record for the mail server or also an additional 'A' record on top? My thinking is that both are needed, as it will be functioning as more than only mail, which will be routed to 'user@domain.xxx'
Another question - is UUCP still widely and practically used syntax in today's mail systems?

jharris · 09-15-2001, 04:09 PM

Uhm... If you are talking about the server then yeah - you have to have an A record too as an MX record points to a name. So the mail relay who is transfering to you looks up the MX record which points to say smtp.mydomain.net, then has to look up the A record of smtp.mydomain.net. As for UUCP - I've never seen it actually used...

cheers

Jamie...

sancho5 · 09-15-2001, 04:48 PM

I see. That helps a lot, and thanks for the info!
Kick it.