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Re: mail does not work



This one time, at band camp, Sandip P Deshmukh said:
> >Put the NT box in the smarthost line that ends in bydns_a, and change
> >bydns_a to byname if you want a local address to work (I think there is
> >a seperate way to specify an IP literal - check www.exim.org to make
> >sure).  bydns_a forces a dns lookup for the MX record, where byname
> >sends directly to that box.
> >
> >HTH,
> >Steve
> >
> 
> 
> well, i do not understand much of what you said. a newbie. i tried 
> reading man exim and visited www.exim.org only to get more confused! by 
> the way, the smarthost line does end in bydns_a and i am able to send 
> mail to myself using mail command. for instance, i can execute mail 
> sandip@deshmukh.work and the mail is indeed delivered!
> 
> its only when the address is remote, it is not delivered.
> 
> thanx again
> 
> -sandip

Exim understands what addresses are local, as well as what addresses are
remote, by doing a DNS lookup.  If your box is set up normally, your
computer's hostname (deshmukh.work) will be in /etc/hosts, and so will
resolve to a local address.

If exim finds that the address is not local, it has to use the
remote_smtp transport to deliver the mail.  How it does that is set in
exim.conf.  You can either have exim deliver all messages directly (good
if you have an always on, static IP) or send through a smarthost (your
ISP's mail hub, which is an always on, static IP).  When exim looks up
my.isp.com, it does a DNS lookup, and the information returned is called
the 'A record'.  It takes longer than it's worth to fully explain DNS
here, but this is the short version.  The local NT box on a subnet will
not have an 'A record', so you have to get it to resolve differently.

If you don't want exim to look for the 'A record', you can force it to
look for the 'name' of a remote computer and deliver to it directly.
Hence the two options, bydns_a and byname.  Put this in your /etc/hosts:

192.168.x.x     my.NT.box   
(using real values of course)

and this in exim.conf:

# This transport is used for delivering messages over SMTP connections.

remote_smtp:
  driver = smtp
  authenticate_hosts = "my.NT.box byname"
  
Then set up the client-based authentication at the end - I forget which
one of the three listed options you'll want for an NT box, but it's one
of the first two listed (i.e., not the cram-md5 one).  Should work for
you.

HTH, and hope it's clear enough,
Steve
-- 
Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake?
		-- John Heywood

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