Re: [cobalt-users] RaQ3i - Sendmail upgrade to 8.12.8 issues?

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dave Reid wrote:

> I have a some questions and a request resulting form a major meltdown
> with our SMTP and SPAM! We were getting so many spam's relaying through
> it was shutting down our SMTP server, this was a result of having added
> yahoo.com and yahoo.ca to the allowed Relays because of some serious
> whining from a couple of clients who had friends using a yahoo email
> address.

If your sendmail is set up properly you don't have to add yahoo.com or
yahoo.ca just for own users to be able to receive email from yahoo, and
send email to yahoo.

> It took me a little while to figure out the cause, I knew it
> was spam killing the server but did not know what to do about it, I
> tried updating sendmail, blocking out huge blocks of IP #'s manually in
> the hosts.deny file, but nothing worked until I removed yahoo.com and
> yahoo.ca from the allowed relay section.

Right.  They shouldn't be there.  But you shouldn't need them there.

> Questions & Requests
> ====================
> 
> 1) Is there a problem with the way SMTP is functioning on our server.
> From the day I set up the server I have had to add any domain I wanted
> to send email to into the Relay section of the email setup on the Cobalt
> GUI. For example if I wanted to send an email to dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxx I
> had to add microsoft.com to the Relay box in the email properties under
> the control panel in the GUI. Is this the way it is supposed to work?

No.

> I have always thought this was not quite right, but other cobalt owners
> indicated that's just the way it is on a RaQ.

Not true.  You've either misunderstood them, or they're wrong.  You
don't have to do this, and you shouldn't have to do this.  If you did,
how would ISP mail-servers operate?  They have no idea what domains
their customers are sending email to, and yet it works fine.

> If that entry is not there
> I get a relaying denied error (error 550). But really, I am not trying
> to relay from a 3rd party, I am just trying to send an email to an
> outside address though a domain hosted on our server.

Something is broken in your email configuration.

> 2) I have the sendmail 8.9.3 package released by Package master for the
> Cobalt Raq3 installed, and would like to upgrade to the sendmail 8.12.8
> directly from sendmail.org. Is there any known problems doing this
> upgrade on the RaQ3i.

I wouldn't do it.  The RaQ is an appliance, and all the programs are
designed to work together.  Unless you're very careful in your
installation you won't install the right files in the right place
(they're NOT in the right place for a Cobalt by default), and you could
easily cause sendmail to completely stop working.

If you decide to do it be prepared to do it on a spare box before trying
it on a live system.

Please contact me offlist if you need professional help in repairing
your sendmail configuration.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman, nobaloney.net, P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517 US
Internet & Unix/Linux/Sun/Cobalt Consulting +1 909 778-9980
Our jblists address used on lists is for list email only
To contact us offlist: "http://www.nobaloney.net/contactus.html";