Scalix Forums

I thought we were going to do an "all-at-once" move to scalix - but it appears now we're going to do a phased migration with a few users moving at first.

So I'm trying to get scalix to work with the old legacy sendmail server - and only forward some users to the scalix server.

My understanding is that I setup scalix on a "subdomain" to do this - and forward users who have migrated:
user@domain.com -> user@sub.domain.com

(I'm doing this using /etc/aliases under sendmail)

I have MX records set up as follows:
MX 10 domain.com. mail.domain.com. = old server IP
MX 10 sub.domain.com. mail.sub.domain.com = new scalix server IP

on the scalix server /etc/mail/local-host-names includes both
domain.com
sub.domain.com

(and sendmail has been restarted)

I can send to scalix *directly* using:
user@sub.domain.com - and it accepts it fine.

However, when I try to send to user@domain.com - the old mail server *tries* to forward email to user@sub.domain.com, but gets confused, and gives me this error:

553 5.3.5 mail.sub.domain.com. config error: mail loops back to me (MX problem?)
554 5.3.5 Local configuration error

I reference this post - which gave me some ideas to do this forwarding setup:
http://www.scalix.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2151

What I'm worried about is: I originally set up scalix to receive domain.com email - and default to domain.com for email addresses, etc. Do I need to reset scalix to default to sub.domain.com?
Or perhaps it is that both servers have the "same value of $j" (domain name) as mentioned in the sendmail docs? (nothing else seems to apply)
http://www.sendmail.org/faq/section4.html#4.5

Any help / ideas are greatly appreciated.

What I'm trying to do is have all users appear to be "@domain.com" and have the 2 servers work together as well as possible - with only a few users migrated to the new scalix server (for now).

I'm starting to realize that this is a configuration problem on my old sendmail server...

it seems I can send to user@sub.domain.com from anywhere *but* my old sendmail server.

perhaps there is some setting under sendmail which "strips" subdomain names like "sub"??

still trying to figure this out.

ok... it turns out both servers were saying they were "mail.domain.com"

i.e. when you telnet to port 25 on each server, both replied:
220 mail.domain.com ESMTP ...

I had trouble figuring out how to change scalix's name... it was NOT the hostname.
it turns out it was in:
/opt/scalix/global/config

once I changed that to mail.sub.domain.com, and restarted scalix - the two SMTP servers were happy to talk to each other.

I have to say, it's awesome that you came back to update this post with the resolution.

Thanks

sigh.... it appears I have communication one way:
the old (sendmail) server will successfully forward email to the new (scalix) server using a sendmail alias.

But... for email addresses NOT on the new scalix server - I can't send *back* to the old mail server. Or at least I don't know how.

I thought that scalix would use the MX record if the user didn't exist in scalix.

Here is my example:
user4@domain.com
does NOT exist in scalix
I get this response from the SMTP command "RCPT TO: user4@domain.name"
550 5.1.1 user4@domain.com... User unknown

I also tried setting up an "internet address" in scalix for user4 - but this does not help.

What do I have to do to have users using scalix be able to send mail *back* to the old server?

The old server has the MX record for domain.com and accepts mail for that domain right now.

One EASY way would be to edit the sendmail.cf file, and define the old server as a smarthost.

Look for a line that says DS. just add the FQDN of your old server after the DS with no space, and restart sendmail.

That will force sendmail to send any email destined for an address that doesn't exist on the Scalix server to your old server. If the person is on the old server, then the message will be delivered, if they're out on the Inet, then your old server will forward it from there.

Keep in mind, you'll need to configure the old server to relay email coming from the scalix box. That may or may not already be in place.

Kev.

that seems to work very well. It does exactly what I need.

Mail made it to the "user4" mailbox on the old (sendmail) server. And the mail sent to mailboxes on the scalix server stay on the scalix server.

Thank you!

You will also need to test outbound email from the scalix server.

You may or may not need to make some config changes to allow a user on the scalix server to reach (for example) a yahoo/gmail/etc email address. Just test it before you go live.