local sendmail appending localhost and 127.0.0.1

Hi there.

Can someone please confirm that this is expected behavior?

If I telnet to my mail server and simply use the mail command to send
a message to an external email address I am getting the following
message header.

Whilst I can reach this particular email account there are other
accounts I am not reaching. I suspect that the email is being rejected
because buried in the header there is the following:

Received: from mail.mydomain.info (mail.mydomain.info [127.0.0.1])
Received: (from james@localhost)

Is there anything I can do to get rid of the 127.0.0.1 and the
localhost reference? Or is that just expected behavior? I've tried
setting various masquerade options without success but some external
mail servers are accepting my emails and some are rejecting them.

Any thoughts?

Kind regards,
James


Return-Path:
Received: from iaamta01ps.mx.bigpond.com ([MY.EXTERNAL.IP.ADDR])
by imta03ps.mx.bigpond.com with ESMTP
id
<20071106121716.JQJJ25492.imta03ps.mx.bigpond.com@iaamta01ps.mx.bigpond.com>
for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2007 12:17:16 +0000
Received: from mail.mydomain.info ([MY.EXTERNAL.IP.ADDR])
by iaamta01ps.mx.bigpond.com with ESMTP
id
<20071106121715.MMKN16983.iaamta01ps.mx.bigpond.com@mail.mydomain.info>
for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2007 12:17:15 +0000
Received: from mail.mydomain.info (mail.mydomain.info [127.0.0.1])
by mail.mydomain.info (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id lA6CEipu005817
for ; Tue, 6 Nov 2007 23:14:45 +1100
Received: (from james@localhost)
by mail.mydomain.info (8.13.8/8.13.8/Submit) id lA6CEiqk005816
for thanatic@telstra.com; Tue, 6 Nov 2007 23:14:44 +1100
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 23:14:44 +1100
From: James C
Message-Id: <200711061214.lA6CEiqk005816@mail.mydomain.info>
To: thanatic@telstra.com
Subject: balh vlah blah

Re: local sendmail appending localhost and 127.0.0.1

On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:34:20 -0800, Thanatos wrote:
> Hi there.
>
> Can someone please confirm that this is expected behavior?
>
> If I telnet to my mail server and simply use the mail command to send
> a message to an external email address I am getting the following
> message header.
>
> Whilst I can reach this particular email account there are other
> accounts I am not reaching. I suspect that the email is being rejected
> because buried in the header there is the following:
>
> Received: from mail.mydomain.info (mail.mydomain.info [127.0.0.1])
> Received: (from james@localhost)
>
> Is there anything I can do to get rid of the 127.0.0.1 and the
> localhost reference? Or is that just expected behavior? I've tried
> setting various masquerade options without success but some external
> mail servers are accepting my emails and some are rejecting them.

You can tweak /etc/hosts or the local DNS setup to make sure that
resolving 127.0.0.1 returns the local domain too:

$ host 127.0.0.1
1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer localhost.laptop.
$

There is no toplevel '.laptop' domain right now, but this way mail
servers which are picky enough to expect an FDQN in *all* `Received:'
headers are happy.

Re: local sendmail appending localhost and 127.0.0.1

In article <87d4umjfkx.fsf@kobe.laptop> Giorgos Keramidas
writes:
>On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:34:20 -0800, Thanatos wrote:
>>
>> Can someone please confirm that this is expected behavior?

It is.

>> Whilst I can reach this particular email account there are other
>> accounts I am not reaching. I suspect that the email is being rejected
>> because buried in the header there is the following:
>>
>> Received: from mail.mydomain.info (mail.mydomain.info [127.0.0.1])
>> Received: (from james@localhost)

No that's not the problem, all e-mail generated from direct invocation
of sendmail in a modern intstallation will have headers like that.

>You can tweak /etc/hosts or the local DNS setup to make sure that
>resolving 127.0.0.1 returns the local domain too:
>
> $ host 127.0.0.1
> 1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer localhost.laptop.

But that isn't relevant in this case at least. The 'localhost' in
james@localhost is hardwired, it's generated by the MSP which doesn't
receive the message over a TCP connection but on stdin, and thus has no
IP address to lookup. It should be read literally, "I got this message
from the user james on the local host".

The other Received header already has FQDNs as you can see, though the
one in the comment is actually the result of reverse-lookup of 127.0.0.1
- so I guess Thanatos already has DNS or /etc/hosts setup the way you
suggest.

--Per Hedeland
per@hedeland.org

Re: local sendmail appending localhost and 127.0.0.1

On Nov 8, 10:36 am, p...@hedeland.org (Per Hedeland) wrote:
>
> No that's not the problem, all e-mail generated from direct invocation
> of sendmail in a modern intstallation will have headers like that.

Thanks Mr Hedeland. I wasn't to happy with my description of my issue
but you're expert comments are appreciated.

I am now moving forward with my configuration having got 3 or so
outbound emails working.

The remaining trick seems to be sending to hotmail accounts.

I've registered a SPF entry for my domain and I've tested with an
automatic tester (http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/spf/)

I'm getting a positive message from this service but my messages are
not yet being accepted by hotmail (the dreaded /dev/null silent
failure.) Hotmail did note that it would take 48 hours to propagate to
their servers and it has only been about 24 hours - so hopefully I am
just being impatient.

It would be nice for them to say why a message is being rejected.

Kind regards,


> But that isn't relevant in this case at least. The 'localhost' in
> james@localhost is hardwired, it's generated by the MSP which doesn't
> receive the message over a TCP connection but on stdin, and thus has no
> IP address to lookup. It should be read literally, "I got this message
> from the user james on the local host".
>
> The other Received header already has FQDNs as you can see, though the
> one in the comment is actually the result of reverse-lookup of 127.0.0.1
> - so I guess Thanatos already has DNS or /etc/hosts setup the way you
> suggest.
>
> --Per Hedeland
> p...@hedeland.org

Re: local sendmail appending localhost and 127.0.0.1

On Thu, 8 Nov 2007, Thanatos wrote:

> The remaining trick seems to be sending to hotmail accounts.
>
>
> I'm getting a positive message from this service but my messages are
> not yet being accepted by hotmail (the dreaded /dev/null silent
> failure.) Hotmail did note that it would take 48 hours to propagate to
> their servers and it has only been about 24 hours - so hopefully I am
> just being impatient.

Dont think that them acking yor SPF will help you at all.

> It would be nice for them to say why a message is being rejected.

They themselves dont even know

http://forums.ausics.net/viewtopic.php?t=30"

--
Cheers
Res

Re: local sendmail appending localhost and 127.0.0.1

On Nov 9, 10:26 am, Res wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Nov 2007, Thanatos wrote:
> > The remaining trick seems to be sending to hotmail accounts.
>
> > I'm getting a positive message from this service but my messages are
> > not yet being accepted by hotmail (the dreaded /dev/null silent
> > failure.) Hotmail did note that it would take 48 hours to propagate to
> > their servers and it has only been about 24 hours - so hopefully I am
> > just being impatient.
>
> Dont think that them acking yor SPF will help you at all.
>
> > It would be nice for them to say why a message is being rejected.
>
> They themselves dont even know
>
> http://forums.ausics.net/viewtopic.php?t=30"
>
> --
> Cheers
> Res

Ah-ha! Thanks Res.

Well I've given up on the idea of doing an end-to-end solution.
Without changing anything else, I simply entered my ISP's mail server
into the smart host setting and now my email gets to anywhere I like,
not marked as spam.

Cheers,
James