[TriLUG] sendmail & aliases

[Jason Tower]

disclaimer: i'm a postfix user, so take all this with a grain of salt.

1. on my rh8 box, there is no /etc/mail/aliases, but rather /etc/aliases (and 
/etc/postfix/aliases as well).  if you have moved the file, this may cause 
problems.

2. rh8 gives you the option of installing both sendmail and postfix.  to keep 
them from stepping on each other's toes, there are many symlinks, workarounds 
(see /etc/alternatives), and extra files added which make things more 
complicated then a single-mta system.  for example:

[jason at holly jason]$ ls -l /usr/bin/ | grep newaliases
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           32 Mar 20 10:46 newaliases -> 
/etc/alternatives/mta-newaliases
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           31 Mar 20 11:14 newaliases.postfix -> 
../../usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           23 Mar 20 10:46 newaliases.sendmail -> 
../../usr/sbin/sendmail

i don't know exactly what /etc/alternatives/mta-newaliases does, nor do i 
understand the latter two files point to, but iy may be that your problem 
lies somewhere in this area.  maybe you need to run 
/usr/bin/newaliases.sendmail instead of /usr/bin/newaliases.

finally, try running redhat-switchmail just to make sure that all of your 
settings are pointing to sendmail and not postfix.  probably won't change 
anything but it can't hurt to double check.

good luck - jason

On Sunday 23 March 2003 17:27, Scott Lundgren wrote:
> With too much of a head cold to enjoy the great weather outside I'm
> tackling sendmail. Using the notes from the sendmail class (thanks jon!)
> everything seems to be working. I can send messages out, I can recieve
> messages to users that have accounts, and the sendmail installation passes
> the open relay tests from that link jason posted. What is failing are
> aliases.
>
> on RH 8.0
> in /etc/mail/aliases (snipped for brevity)
>   postmaster:	root    # this alias works
>   sl:			scottl  # this fails. scottl is an account that can recieve
> messages.
> after editing /etc/mail/aliases
> $ /usr/bin/newaliases
> but messages still return with "SMTP error ...User unknown" in the headers
> and the same verbage in /var/log/maillog
>
> Am I missing something?
> What should I try before turning the log level more verbose?
>
> - SL
>
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