[cobalt-users] very basic email setup

[James Dory <engineer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm not a stupid guy, got good grades in math and some other subjects in 
college. I think with enough research I could get this. But I'm just too 
pressed for time in other job duties, so hope the list will forgive some 
basic questions. I've just come back from a long reading session in the 
archives, and it just didn't help. Sometimes my brain just doesn't grasp 
some concepts easily at first.

I'm having trouble getting email to work on a Raq4r. I lack a clear 
understanding of what goes on. Here's my setup:
1 raq doing email and web serving. Another doing lan (local) DNS and 
other stuff. We get our internet connection through an ISP provider GCI. 
We get a static IP number from them. Right now this cable provider is 
hosting our email. I want to host it on our raq. (if I'm using the 
proper term of 'host'.)

Under Control panel/Network, the email raq's domain name is 
nomecity.org, host name is www. The primary and secondary DNS servers 
point to GCI's DNS servers. The domain name nomecity.org is hosted on 
register.com and I have the DNS there pointing to register.com's DNS 
servers. I have mx records pointing to nomecity.org and 
mail.nomecity.org. Mail seems to be working here ok except that 
www.dnsreport.com has a warning about mail.nomecity.org claiming to be 
an smtp server.

Now I add a virtual site under the name of www.nomealaska.org. This is 
what I really want to use for our email. Here is where I get more 
confused. Under Control Panel/Email parameters, there  is a place to add 
Host/Domain Aliases, and under the Site Management/Site Settings there 
is a place to add email server aliases. I'm not clear on which gets 
what. (This domain is also hosted on register.com and has mx records 
pointing to nomealaska.org and mail.nomealaska.org there.)

Back to control panel/email parameters, would I need to use the 'Relay 
for following Hosts/Domains' for the virtual site nomealaska.org and 
other domains/ip numbers? Do I add nomealaska.org and 
mail.nomealaska.org under the Host/Domain Aliases here or just under the 
Site Management/site settings page. (You can't do both.) I've tried 
several combinations. But my brain just isn't clicking on what actually 
is going on here.

Here's what's happening:  I set up an 8 letter username and then a full 
name email alias for a user. I couldn't get it to work with the alias 
until I added it in the virtualusertable. It seems to be working. Then I 
added a second user same way and can't get it to work at all. Here's a 
couple excerpts from the maillog with the usernames/ip addresses changed:

This one works: (seems like mailer=local or mailer=esmtp is big clue):

Jan 27 10:49:29 www sendmail[23181]: h0RJnMQ23181: 
from=<user@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, size=596, class=0, nrcpts=1, 
msgid=<macaddress@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, 
relay=mmp-1.gci.net [208.138.130.80]
Jan 27 10:49:29 www sendmail[23182]: h0RJnMQ23181: 
to=<user-no1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, delay=00:00:02, xdelay=00:00:00, 
mailer=local, pri=30110, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent

This one doesn't work:

Jan 27 09:37:44 www sendmail[20077]: h0RIbbQ20077: 
from=<user@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, size=599, class=0, n
rcpts=1, msgid=<macaddress@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, 
relay=mmp-1.gci.net [208.138
.130.80]
Jan 27 09:37:57 www sendmail[20098]: h0RIbbQ20077: 
to=<user-no2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, delay=00:00:15,
xdelay=00:00:13, mailer=esmtp, pri=30599, relay=www.nomealaska.org. 
[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx], dsn=4.0.0, stat=
Deferred: Connection reset by www.nomealaska.org.

User-no1 and user-no2 I think are both setup the same, but user-no2 is 
not working. I am also getting messages for both users in the maillog 
like this:

Jan 27 10:48:26 www sendmail[23118]: h0NNggN07188: 
to=<user-no1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, ctladdr=<user@xxxxxxxxxxxx> (114/100), 
delay=3+20:05:40, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=esmtp, pri=9030507, 
relay=www.nomealaska.org., dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Connection reset by 
www.nomealaska.org.

I've got our outgoing SMTP server set to use smtp.gci.net on our PC 
email programs. (I've got all these right now set up for testing on my 
own pc using Mozilla.) Our GCI hosted email is the ci.nome.ak.us domain. 
We are using pop.

So if starting with clean slate and I want the Raq server to be 
nomecity.org and a virtual site with all the users and their email 
coming to/from the domain nomealaska.org, with internet connectivity 
from GCI and our domains hosted on register.com, what do I use under the 
relay hosts/domains, the email hosts/domains, and the sitesettings email 
domain aliases?

(I would rename the raq from nomecity.org to nomealaska.org as nomecity was just for testing purposes, but I've got our webpage setup already and don't want to risk screwing all that up..)

Terribly sorry if these questions are bothering those that understand all this, but I could really use some clarifying.

--

Jim D.