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Talkin with Smtp

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by rouse 2 views

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All this worked fine up to a few weeks ago...
What is the difference between how a windows mail client relaying thru my sendmail server talks to smtp and the "mail" program on my linux server talks to smtp? My windows clients incoming POP and outgoing SMTP both point to my linux sendmail server & work fine (I use fetchmail to pop mail from my isp). However I can't use "pine" or "mail" directly from my server to send email. A bounce message looks like this:
The original message was received at Sat, 20 Sep 2003 23:00:59 -0500
from root@localhost

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

(reason: 550 [PERMFAIL] someotheraddr.com requires valid sender)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to smtp.myisp.net.:
>>> RCPT To:
<<< 550 [PERMFAIL] someotheraddr.com requires valid sender
550 5.1.1 ... User unknown

I need to be able to send email from a PHP web application & believe that PHP is using SMTP for the mail feature. Also, my auto replier is bouncing now. So, don't all these go through sendmail, including emails from my windows clients?
I tried to specify username and password in the MTA config using: AuthInfo:smtp.my.isp "U:validuser" "P:userpasswd" "M:CRAM-MD5"

Any ideas appreciated.
Keith

8 replies

by jim-h

If I read this correctly the problem is only when sending via sendmail from the Server and not from the clients using the Server correct? This does rule out filters on the outgoing mail server that you are using.

I am not sure how you have sendmail setup but have you looked into the ?f option? I got it from man sendmail in a UNIX box. Sicne you tried Pine it seems if you setup Pine correctly it would have taken care of the ?valid sender? but this was all I could think of offhand.

-f name
Sets the name of the "from" person (that is, the sender of the mail).

Let me know what happens,
Jim

by rouse

Jim, my mail clients have no problem relaying thru the server. My email accounts are setup as popusers with no login shell. I use fetchmail to pop mail from the isp. I also use procmail to filter incoming messages & had one recipe therein to autoreply in certain cases. Top shows the processes owned by root.
I saw the '-f' flag in the man page, but I'm not familiar how to create an email using raw sendmail. Can you explain?
Thanks - Keith

by rouse

Jim, my mail clients have no problem relaying thru the server. My email accounts are setup as popusers with no login shell. I use fetchmail to pop mail from the isp. I also use procmail to filter incoming messages & had one recipe therein to autoreply in certain cases. Top shows the processes owned by root.
I saw the '-f' flag in the man page, but I'm not familiar how to create an email using raw sendmail. Can you explain?
Thanks - Keith

by rouse

Jim, my mail clients have no problem relaying thru the server. My email accounts are setup as popusers with no login shell. I use fetchmail to pop mail from the isp. I also use procmail to filter incoming messages & had one recipe therein to autoreply in certain cases. Top shows the processes owned by root.
I saw the '-f' flag in the man page, but I'm not familiar how to create an email using raw sendmail. Can you explain?
Thanks - Keith

by bg4

Keith, It appears from the error message "<<< 550 [PERMFAIL] someotheraddr.com requires valid sender
550 5.1.1 ... User unknown" that your mail from the server is being rejected because it doesn't resolve to a real address.
To solve the problem in Pine, go into Pines config and enter the correct "personal-name" and correct "user-domain". Now when you create outgoing messages in Pine the "from" address will be a vaild address.
As for the PHP app I cannot really help. Using "mail" will send mail as the user that runs the PHP app. You could setup masquareding in sendmail which would solve this. See www.sendmail.org for more info on that.

Hope this helps. Rod.

by rouse

Thanks folks. (Sorry for the triple post above.) I'm not sure why, but my php mail() function is working now. Possibly my isp changed something on their side & then back? I had already setup masquareding before this problem started. Thanks for the pine config info.

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