Strange Sendmail message returning from my rs/6000

[Jack F. Vogel]

In article <3368 at ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> joed at cca.ucsf.edu (Joe DeBattista) writes:

 [.....incoming mail is bouncing....]
 
>   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
>>>> HELO itsa
><<< 553 Local configuration error, hostname not recognized as local
>554 <joed at itsa.ucsf.EDU>... Service unavailable: Bad file number
 
I believe the usual cause of an error like this is that your sendmail
is not resolving the fully qualified name 'itsa.ucsf.edu' to the local
mailer as it should. Thus it does a nameserver/hosts lookup and attempts
to talk smtp to itself, the message "HELO itsa" is the clue to this.

The solution is to make sure that you have the D,E,F, and G macros defined
in sendmail.cf. D should be the full domain name, E,F, and possibly G are
the pieces that make up D. In your case it should look as follows:

DDucsf.edu
DEucsf
DFedu

Warning, DON'T define G if you don't need it, as in this case, someone a
while back had a "DG" with no value but since it was defined it caused
havoc in the rewrite rules that use these macros.

>I'm also curious if there is anyplace that all the error messages
>that sendmail generates, are in a specific place, with hints as to
>the possible problem and fix.  Thanks for any helpful hints.
 
sendmail messages are logged in /usr/spool/mqueue/syslog, at least that's
where most systems have it, I believe the 6000 is normal in this behavior.
However, it may not be as verbose as the above message. The other thing
to do is to define a bounces alias and have the P option set, then you
will be copied on any bounces on the system.

Good Luck!

Disclaimer: I don't speak for the company.

-- 
Jack F. Vogel			jackv at locus.com
AIX370 Technical Support	       - or -
Locus Computing Corp.		jackv at turnkey.TCC.COM