Re: [cobalt-users] Sendmail weirdness excessive recursion

[sm <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jeff,
At 11:01 29-03-2002 -0800, Jeff Lasman wrote:
>Can anyone help me figure this one out?  Our client is going nuts, and
>we are too.

I saw this problem mentions on this list a few days ago.

>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>.

I did a lookup when I read the email and I saw that the domains resolve.

>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)

Is sendmail configured to accept email for that domain?

>... we started by deleting the domain.
>
>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.

If the answer to the above question was yes, verify the virtusertable.  I
noticed that sometimes there are incorrect entries in the virtusertable
that can cause this excessive recursion error.

>$ /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.

I won't trim the above as it will be of help to people reading the list
archives.

I don't think the problem is with your aliases file.  Please verify the
virtusertable thoroughly.

Regards,
-sm