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Re: Problems receiving mail



> I have a machine that I have installed zmailer-2.99.25 on, and I am
> having some trouble receiving mail. Outgoing mail seems to be fine.
> The smtpserver correctly receives the mail, but the router is having
> some problems with the incoming address. I get the following messages
> in the router log:

I composed at first reply per the information in this letter of yours, then
I made a test posting, and then realized something, what you left out...

The host you run it on is  'parker.ethical.com', which is also known
as 'mail.ethical.com', and which also should recognize itself as:
'ethical.com' ?

See the INSTALL -file, chapters 7, and 8.  Especially chapter 8 at
the discussion about   $MAILVAR/db/localnames  database!

The weird-looking "NO MXes, NO ADDRESS" message is due to fact that
the SMTP transporter does recognize its own addresse at the MX target,
and it drops away all MX-entries it same or higher (numerically) priority
as an entry with its own address has.  That is:

	ethical.com.	IN MX	10 mail.ethical.com.
			IN MX	100 some.other.net.

Now 'mail.ethical.com' happens to be a CNAME for  parker.ethical.com,
and parker does recognize itself, because so it must with the MX
resolving rules.  It notices priority value to be 10, and it removes
all MX entries with that same or larger priority value  --> no MXes.

There are other things that I mention below, but the real problem
is that it does not recognize addresses that should be local to it.

..... (original thinking on your question below) .....

	I have added some indentions below; those were originally
	long lines starting with "<msgid>:" :

> <3200D0AF.7D4C@ix.netcom.com>: address: dgdelage@ix.netcom.com
> <3200D0AF.7D4C@ix.netcom.com>: file: 10238-820
>   <dgdelage@ix.netcom.com> => <details@ethical.com>
> <3200D0AF.7D4C@ix.netcom.com>: address: details@ethical.com
> <3200D0AF.7D4C@ix.netcom.com>: recipient:
>   smtp ethical.com details@ethical.com
> <3200D0AF.7D4C@ix.netcom.com>: info: uid 2 gid 101 size 783
>   headersize 530 bodysize 253 now 838914521 delay 9 resent no trusted
>   yes external external rcvdfrom dfw-ix3.ix.netcom.com ([206.214.98.3])
>   with SMTP authinfo UNKNOWN@dfw-ix3.ix.netcom.com (port 12811) 

   This looks just fine, the "UNKNOWN@.." means just that the RFC 1413
   a.k.a. ident lookup performed by the smtpserver did not get any info
   back -- propably because the remote did not have ident server available.

   (Not everybody runs ident server at their hosts -- I don't at nic.funet.fi,
    because it needs some 25 000 system calls to resolve the TCP connection,
    which syscalls take some 0.4-0.6 seconds to complete.  Now think about
    10-100 new outbound TCP streams per second on which 20-30% get back an
    ident query...)

> I also get the following from mailq:
> 
> smtp/ethical.com:
>         10238-820: smtp; 500 (nameserver data inconsistency. No MX,
>         no address: 'ethical.com', errno=Unknown error) (retry in
>         21m51s, expires in 2d18h, tries=6)
> 	
> The machine that received the mail is also the mail server for the
> domain. 

	That is most peculiar.
	(browsing diffs in between versions 2.99.25 and 2.99.33a2)

	Hmm.. What is the size of your  long  ?
	That is, is your machine a 32-bit one, or 64-bit one ?
	(It should not matter, though.  You are unlikely to run the
	 smtp transporters with WKS checks turned on -- "-W" option)

	My suspect goes to your DNS server, and/or the resolver
	routines.   With 2.99.33a2 (yes, it is a patch on a1)
	you can use bundled libresolv to avoid possible system
	resolver problems (this is from bind-4.9.4-REL)

	Well, there is something wrong also at the DNS data:

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
bash# dig mx ethical.com

; <<>> DiG 2.2 <<>> mx ethical.com 
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6
;; flags: qr rd ra; Ques: 1, Ans: 2, Auth: 2, Addit: 2
;; QUESTIONS:
;;      ethical.com, type = MX, class = IN

;; ANSWERS:
ethical.com.    82819   MX      100 mail.bluefin.net.
ethical.com.    82819   MX      10 mail.ethical.com.

;; AUTHORITY RECORDS:
ethical.com.    169219  NS      NS.ethical.com.
ethical.com.    169219  NS      SERVICE.bluefin.net.

;; ADDITIONAL RECORDS:
NS.ethical.com. 169219  A       205.162.79.27
SERVICE.bluefin.net.    7222    A       205.162.79.2

;; Total query time: 4 msec
;; FROM: nic.funet.fi to SERVER: default -- 127.0.0.1
;; WHEN: Fri Aug  2 09:02:59 1996
;; MSG SIZE  sent: 29  rcvd: 153
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

	I am immediately woried as this reply did not return an A-record
	for the  "mail.ethical.com", nor for "mail.bluefin.net".
	In fact the latter does not exist at all!  The former is
	a CNAME entry pointing to an entity with an A-record.
	(DNS rules say that named objects mentioned at MX entry MUST
	 have an A-record at them, a CNAME is officially invalid,
	 though ZMailer does normal  gethostbyname() lookup at the
	 given MX host names.)

> I have been spending most of today trying to learn exactly how the
> configuration scripts are processing the headers, but I have not
> gotten very far. Does anyone know of any detailed information that
> discusses the operation of the config scripts? I have the zmog.doc
> file, and that gives some good clues, but there seems to be pieces 
> missing at times.

	At some addresses the  crossbar  -script (routine) does address
	rewriteing decissions, but there are no user configurable things
	to decide on how various other headers do look like.

	There is a bug (see at BUGS file) at the documentation:
		it has been outdated somewhat

> Does anyone have a few moments to jot down some ideas of what could
> be wrong so that I can check them out?
> 
> Thanks......
> --
> Gerard Hickey, hickey@ctron.com, +1 603 337 7391/+1 603 337 7534 (fax)
>    Cabletron Systems, 36 Industrial Way, Rochester, NH USA  03867
> 	      Mi lernas esperanton. Parolu al mi.

	/Matti Aarnio <mea@nic.funet.fi>