tlug: Once again sendmail problem/solution

[Dennis McMurchy <denismcm@example.com>]

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tlug note from Dennis McMurchy <denismcm@example.com>
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  Hi,

  A while back I reported a new problem with the sendmail MTA on
my system.  After long faithful service it had developed the nasty
habit of sometimes just getting stuck with a open connection to 
another mailserver.

  Looking at the process table would show sendmail in states like: 

219  p1 S     0:00 sendmail: NAA00222 sun4a.do-johodai.ac.jp.: client MAIL

But it would just remain stuck there for unacceptably long periods.
This seemed to happen mostly with ac.jp domains, but not exclusively.

  Finally one of the engineers at gol.com suggested defining a 
relay host (e.g. relay.gol.com), because my sendmail was sending
directly.  I did this in the sendmail.cf file as follows:

	# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
	#DS  Dennis commented this out and added the following line
	DSrelay.gol.com

  I haven't tested it a lot, but the piece that was stuck in the mail
queue earlier has now gone out without any fuss.

  I don't really know what I'm doing, so if anyone has any thoughts on
unforeseen consequences of making this change, please do weigh in.

Dennis McMurchy, 
Tojinmachi, Fukuoka


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