Scalix Forums

I want to configure Scalix to forward email to a smarthost (in fact our messagelabs service). I have followed the instructions from the Knowledgebase (see below) but it doesn't seem to work. I even tried restarting sendmail and rebooting the whole machine. Basically once I set the smarthost nothing gets sent.

Are these instructions still valid for Scalix 11? What logs or queues should I be looking in to try and find the problem?

1. Set the DS macro in the sendmail.cf file on the Scalix Server. Change the file from:

# "Smart" relay host (may be null)

DS

to

# "Smart" relay host (may be null)

DSoutboundserver.domain.com

where outboundserver.domain.com is the name of your internet-bound (messages) server/Smart Host.

2. Stop (omshut) and Start Scalix (omrc) after the change.

That works for me.

What does outboundserver.domain.com resolve to? Does the IP address look right?

Are there any errors in /var/log/maillog related to this host?

In the log I have found the following error:

Mar 9 08:40:58 post sendmail[30335]: l298SMCa030329: to=<echo@uk.uu.net>, delay=00:12:36, xdelay=00:12:36, mailer=relay, pri=120955, relay=cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com, dsn=4.0.0, stat=Deferred: Name server: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com: host name lookup failure

However if I do an nslookup it works fine:

nslookup cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Server: 192.168.0.5
Address: 192.168.0.5#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 194.106.220.51
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 194.106.220.67
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 195.245.231.163
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 195.245.231.211
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.136.3
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.136.35
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.136.115
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.136.211
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.137.35
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.137.67
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.137.83
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.137.99
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.137.131
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.137.147
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.138.67
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.138.83
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.139.51
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 85.158.139.67
Name: cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
Address: 194.106.220.35

Did you do the nslookup from the same machine? I assume you did. In that case the issue is definatedly with sendmail. I would check that /etc/resolv.conf is correct.

The DNS records for that address does look valid on my machine too.

Here's a good resource on troubleshooting this issue on a basic level:

http://www.unix.org.ua/orelly/networkin ... h21_01.htm

Please post again if you still can't get it resolved.

Rather than restarting all of scalix, just restart sendmail. That'll have less impact on your users.

/etc/init.d/sendmail restart

Kev.

Yes I did nslookup from the same machine. I have checked /etc/resolv.conf and it is correct.

Like I said I tried restarting sendmail, however just to be sure I have just tried the setting again and restarted sendmail only. Same problem. Any other ideas?

If you add the server to /etc/hosts, does it work?

Kev

1. vi /etc/mail/sendmail.mc
dnl define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.your.provider')

change to
define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.mesagelabserver.com')


2. # omsendin

3. # service sendmail restart
4. # omoff -d0 smtpd ; sleep 1 ; omon smtpd

This works for me.

Should there be 2 's'es in message labs in the smarthost definition?

Kev.

Thanks for the omsendin instructions - I have never seen this before and couldn't even find this command documented. Unfortunately it still didn't work.

I must admit I haven't yet tried adding the server to /etc/hosts but I don't see why I should need to do this when the nslookup resolves correctly. And as you can see there are so many servers that I don't really want to have to do this. I will however try this as a test and let you know if it changes anything.

I haven't had a chance to try the /etc/hosts change, but I found something else. While the nslookup works fine (as below), if I specifically ask for the MX record I get the following:

nslookup
> set type=mx
> cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
;; Truncated, retrying in TCP mode.
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

It seems messagelabs don't maintain an MX record, I believe to avoid getting targeted by even more spammers. Is this most likely the cause of our problem? Is it possible to stop sendmail requiring a MX record? With our last mail system this wasn't an issue.

Thanks again for all the help!!!

You can specify a smarthost by IP address instead of domain name.

DS[24.71.223.43]

That might get around it.

Thanks,
Jay

The problem is that messagelabs have a whole cluster of servers so I don't want to pull out 1 IP only. Also there is the potential that they could change IPs at any time.

divig wrote:I haven't had a chance to try the /etc/hosts change, but I found something else. While the nslookup works fine (as below), if I specifically ask for the MX record I get the following:

nslookup
> set type=mx
> cluster3.eu.messagelabs.com
;; Truncated, retrying in TCP mode.
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

It seems messagelabs don't maintain an MX record, I believe to avoid getting targeted by even more spammers. Is this most likely the cause of our problem? Is it possible to stop sendmail requiring a MX record? With our last mail system this wasn't an issue.

Thanks again for all the help!!!

I don't think scalix will need to lookup MX records for messagelabs.com.
As for my case, i just edit /etc/hosts with one single IP and hostname.
Everything works fine.

Your case, i don't think add in a single entry in /etc/hosts will help. Since the DNS will resolve multiple IP for you.

But then, i would suggest you to try edit one entry first in /etc/hosts.
Then monitor /var/log/maillog file.
Then decide what is the next step you should do.

If single entry works. That means multiple IP address lookup doesn't work with sendmail.

Just my 2 cents.

Sorry about the delay in trying this, but it is hard to find a good time to play with such critical settings. I have however now tried adding a single entry to /etc/hosts and it still did not work - sane lookup errors.

Any other ideas?