Re: [cobalt-users] Unable to receive email from outside world

[Andreas Banze <andreas@xxxxxxxx>]

On Thu Jun 05, 2003 - 01:18:01PM, Kirpal Tunil wrote:

> Ever since I relocated my RAQ4 emails have not been comming in from outside 
> of my router. The IP changed so I made the appropriated modifications(...I 
> think).

I don't... ;) Like others already tried to tell you your DNS config seems to
be fucked up.

> I also tried to modify the sendmail.cf file by editing cobalt.mc 
> and then using M4. The line that I was supposed to comment out was not 
> there buit ther was something similiar so I commented it out and still did 
> not seem to help. 

Normally it is not commenting out but uncommenting - because in some
configuration defaults the statement that allows unresolvable senders to
send you mail in commented.

> So I restored both those files from backup.

telling us the line you wanted and the line you found could've helped a bit...

Normally you want to use the following line in your sendmail.mc (if it is
not there insert it, if it is there check whether it is commented out and
uncomment it by getting rid of the trailing dnl).

FEATURE(`Accept_unresolvable_domains')dnl

It will allow anyone, even not resolvable senders, to send you mail (unless
otherwise blocked). Some people tend to disable it because many spammers are
blocked by this but unfortunately it could block valid mail as well
(especially when DNS is flaky or hosts are moved/newly created) so business
sites normally have this feature enabled (at least all I worked for... ;) 

> I thought that I might have been the fact that I was not running the DNS 
> service on my RAQ4 so I turned it on and set the appropriate setting for a 
> domain and still nothing.  I know for a fact my email, the one I am trying 
> to "send with" is valid and working. No emails are passing through...at all.

Your problem results from a not properly working DNS server - if your raq is
acting as a DNS server you should have a entry that allows to forward DNS
requests to an outside DNS in case your raq doesn't lnow the answer (or even
the root servers, but most likely the DNS servers of your ISP/hoster).

If you really don't need a DNS on your raq, disable it and check the
/etc/resolv.conf whether the given DNS is correct (or check the IP settings
in your webinterface for the DNS settings).

check these and then use "dig mx" on the raq to test whether the domain in
your log get's resolved.

MfG
Andreas Banze

--
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
					-- Albert Schweitzer