Forum OpenACS Q&A: ns_sendmail config problem

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Posted by MaineBob OConnor on

I've attempted to solve my problem by my post on aD web/db:
ns_sendmail: 220 error AOLserver, OK Linux and I read the thread here on Open ACS
Error in ns_sendmail, asked by Roberto and answered by Nathan and Don and I still don't have it working.

Recap
ns_sendmail is NOT working.
Sendmail on this Linux RH6.1/AolServer/OpenACS3.2.2 system is working fine. For some reason my nsd.tcl file did NOT have the line
ns_param MailHost 127.0.0.1
I added it!
This is the line recommended by Don in the second thread above, but it doesn't work for me.

I've gotten various error results based on what MailHost is set to.

  • 127.0.0.1
  • localhost
  • smtp.myhost.com
  • smtp.myACSname.com
  • Also WITHOUT the "smtp." in the two above lines.
The results are:
  • Expected a 220 status line; got:
  • Expected a 250 status line; got: 550 Not authenticated -- check your mail first
  • Expected a 250 status line; got: 550 Invalid domain myotherprivatesite.com

This has been tested with my own small tcl file:
if [catch { ns_sendmail $email...
and with the spam feature in
/bboard/admin-community-view.tcl

SO, What's missing, that if I had it, all would be well with the world and email would flow OUT!

TIA -Bob

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Posted by Don Baccus on
One thing is easy to answer - I doubt that "myotherprivatesite.com" is  a registered domain name and therefore no IP can be found for it.

When you use sendmail directly, what IP do you give it?  If you give it 127.0.0.1 then this should work for you within AOLserver.  If it is  listening on another IP, then you must use that IP.

For simplicity's sake, make all your hostname parameters be whatever that correct IP is.  Your complex logical names with "smtp.foo.etc" aren't going to work unless you can ping them from the shell (implying you've set up the domain name and the local machine within that domain, etc).

The "Not authenticated" message is a new one, to me.  I think that whatever you did to get that message might actually be the right thing  to do, and that the error's due to the way you have sendmail configured.  It sounds as though sendmail got the mail, but didn't send it due to authentication (permission?) problems.  This indicates that you're talking to sendmail OK, but sendmail doesn't like you, meaning it's not an AOLserver configuration problem.

So my advice is to replicate whatever got you that error message, and work on sendmail from there.

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Posted by Roberto Mello on
I got this error before in a brand new install of OpenACS and found out that the problem was with Sendmail and the machine itself. Whoever put that box together had not put the full domain name in /etc/HOSTNAME and had missed Sendmail config points.

I fixed the /etc/HOSTNAME and don`t know what else I did to get Sendmail working. Its config files are so freaking cryptic that only opening them in vi made me feel dizzy.

Telneting to your mail server from the shell and replicating what AOLserver would do is what led me to find the answers:

(as your AOLserver user)
nsadmin@brasileiro:/home/roberto$ telnet fslc.usu.edu 25
HELO Trying 129.123.2.40...
Connected to fslc.usu.edu.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 fslc.usu.edu ESMTP Sendmail 8.9.3/8.9.3; Mon, 24 Jul 2000 17:57:55 -0600
HELO brasileiro.net
250 fslc.usu.edu Hello nsadmin@slxwy.dorms.usu.edu [129.123.236.160], pleased to meet you
MAIL FROM:nsadmin@brasileiro.net
250 nsadmin@brasileiro.net... Sender ok
RCPT TO:rmello@cc.usu.edu
250 rmello@cc.usu.edu... Recipient ok
...
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Posted by MaineBob OConnor on

Thanks for the help Roberto & Dan
So far I've figured out that Aolserver is ok and sendmail is behaving weird. It doesn't appear to have a process running...? Bill (SysOp) is going to fix it tonight...

-Bob