Re: howto specify the smtp server

[John Haxby <jch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Myriam Abramson wrote:

> I'm using sendmail. How do I specify to use an smtp server? 
> Thanks.

You don't need to specify an SMTP server for sendmail, it already is 
one.   That's not helpful :-)   If your server is well-connected on the 
Internet then sendmail is quite capable of sending the mail to wherever 
it needs to go.   If you're not well-connected, that is, behind some 
sort of limiting firewall or finding mail bounced by AOL (for example) 
because you have a "dynamic" IP address(*) then you need to set up a relay.

Try sending a message to somewhere to see if you need a relay.    If you 
can't find a friend then you can use my address (not the shrike one, but 
please don't make a habit of using me as a test address).    If the 
message bounces or never leaves your machine (check by running "mailq" 
as root) then you need to set up a relay.

The easiest way is to set up what sendmail calls a "smarthost".   Either 
uncomment the "SMART_HOST" line (delete the leading "dnl ") in 
/etc/mail/sendmail.mc and run "make" in /etc/mail, or edit 
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf directly and look for the line that starts "DS" 
and add your relay to the end of that line.

Your relay is provided by your ISP and comes under the title "SMTP" 
server and is usually called something witty like "smtp.hotpop.com" -- 
the leading "smtp" is what gives the game away.

jch


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