[cobalt-developers] Sendmail weirdness excessive recursion

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Can anyone help me figure this one out?  Our client is going nuts, and
we are too.

First... sendmail 8.9.3/8.9.3 running on a Cobalt RaQ3.  CanNOT upgrade
(it's a RaQ thing <frown>).

Second... DNS seems to be fine.  Just to be sure, since it's not on the
RaQ where I can manipulate it, we're moving it to my own servers where I
can.  Some of the root servers seem to point to us, some don't yet
<frown>.  Feel free to look at DNS if you think it's a problem, I'm not
proud <wry grin>.

All real domain names used throughout. '-SPAM-' (with the dashes)
inerted where appropriate to make sure autobots can't grab the email
addresses; if you test, be sure to take out the first dash, the SPAM,
and the second dash, or your test won't work.

Since mail sent to bo-SPAM-b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx were being bounced with
an excessive recursion error as follows:

(reason: 554 rewrite: excessive recursion (max 50), ruleset 3)

... we started by deleting the domain.

Then we ran sendmail using the -bv option:

Sendmail reported to us it would the esmtp mailer.  That's normal.

Then we set up the domain on the server, using the standard RaQ setup
tools.  We did NOT set up any users.

Again we ran sendmail using the -bv option:

$ /usr/sbin/sendmail -bv bo-SPAM-b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This time we got an excessive recursion error.  We should have gotten a
"no such user" error.

So we set up a test domain on the machine (it's nolonger there so don't
bother trying):  testbob.nobaloney.net, put it into DNS (which we
control for nobaloney.net).

Again we ran sendmail using the -bv option:

$ /usr/sbin/sendmail -bv testbo-SPAM-b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

We get the "no such user" error.

We set up user bob for robertleejones.com and user testbob for
testbob.nobaloney.net

We ran sendmail twice more using the -bv option:

$ /usr/sbin/sendmail -bv bo-SPAM-b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and 

$ /usr/sbin/sendmail -bv testbo-SPAM-b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The former still gave us the recursion error.  The latter showed the
mail as locally deliverable.

I did some more tests, including deleting and reinstalling the site. 
Even isntalled it as the system's main site.  Same result <frown>

So I started thinking...

I think therefore I am <smile>

I've reached the conclusion that sendmail must be looking somewhere I
can't figure out, as /etc/aliases and /etc/virtusertable both appear
fine.  I can't figure out where.  I've looked in all the files I can
think of.

Anyone have any ideas?

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Linux and Cobalt/Sun/RaQ Consulting
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 778-9980  *  fax: (702) 548-9484