MAIL HELP

burg (burg@twister.ica.net)
Sat, 22 Feb 1997 08:22:01 -0500 (EST)

I have been wrestling with receiving mail from the internet to
my server for some time now and I can't seem to figure out what
is going on. I have been continually changing the Nameserver db
files and the MX records hoping to find a configuration that will
stay working. What I don't understand is that for a short period of
time it seems that mail will make it through to my server and then
it stops. Sometimes it stops without returning a message to the sender
and other times it relays this message:

Subject: Returned Mail : Local configuration error

Transcript of sessions follows -----

553 "hostname"."domain" config error : mail loops back to me (MX problem?)

Now basically my domain is recognized as the IP address of my LINUX box
on the internet with a PPP connection. The domain also has some aliases
"hostname".domain

The Linux box is also connected to a small internal network.

The internal network is reachable by a unique "hostname".domain that points
to the IP the ethernet card connected to the internal network.

I have no problem sending mail out... its receiving it that's the problem.

If someone with a good understanding of DNS and sendmail could shed
some light on the situation for me it would be greatly appreciated.

(For example... does email work like DNS as in if you call something from
say example.domain.on.ca it looks at ca domain which points to on which
points to domain and so on -> does email go through the same process?)

Help!

Any info would be great.

D Burg
burg@twister.ica.net