sendmail hostname config

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 Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
 From: vladina...@gmail.com
Subject: WARNING: local host name (;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached) is not qualified; see cf/README: WHO AM I?
 Date: 11 Jan 2007 10:21:00 -0800

I am using Sendmail 8.13.5 on Ubuntu 6.10. I keep getting the following error, and nothing I do seems to be able to fix it. Google has been less than helpful, as has ubuntu's official and non-official support forums, and sendmail.org's documentation has been sadly unhelpful. Sendmail, it seems, cannot find the local host name. This is despite it being correctly set in /etc/hosts, in /etc/mail/local-host-names, in DNS, etc.

I've verified that DNS works. All other errors have been squashed. When issuing a make all, or a sendmailconfig in /etc/mail, I get the follow error:

 WARNING: local host name (;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached) is not qualified; see cf/README: WHO AM I?

The sendmail.org documentation suggests the use of

FEATURE(use_cw_file)

which is already in my .mc

It's interesting to note that " ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached) is not qualified; see cf/README: WHO AM I?" actually shows up in the sendmail.cf in a variety of locations (like $j). Manually editing the .cf (bad, I know) and restarting sendmail seems to have no beneficial effect.

Even our local sendmail guru is confused. Anyone have any other ideas?

sendmail hostname config

[snip]

 >WARNING: local host name (;; connection timed out; no servers could be
 >reached) is not qualified; see cf/README: WHO AM I?

>The sendmail.org documentation suggests the use of
>FEATURE(use_cw_file),
>which is already in my .mc

The sendmail documentation referred to by the error message, i.e. the "WHO AM I?" section of the cf/README file, certainly doesn't suggest that, but rather setting confDOMAIN_NAME in the .mc file (which ends up setting $j).

 >It's interesting to note that ";; connection timed out; no servers
 >could
 >be reached) is not qualified; see cf/README: WHO AM I?" actually shows
 >up in the sendmail.cf in a variety of locations (like $j).

Wow - I guess the "helpful" Ubuntu people try to generate .mc and/or .cf with some tool, but forgot to check for errors…

> Manually editing the .cf (bad, I know)

Well, having that garbage in it is definitely worse!:-)

> and restarting sendmail seems to have no beneficial effect.

Have you checked that the .cf isn't auto-regenerated from a .mc that has the garbage in it when you "restart" - putting such "helpful" stuff in rc scripts seems to be common in Linux distributions. Try to find the .mc file and check/modify it - like cf/README says, normally there is no need to set confDOMAIN_NAME at all. And of course also check that the _.mc_ file doesn't get auto-regenerated with garbage in it! Finally, remeber that there are two .cf (and .mc) files in 8.12 and later, sendmail.cf and submit.cf - you didn't say in what context you got the error message, if it's on direct invocation of sendmail in non-daemon mode, it's coming from submit.cf.

Per Hedeland @hedeland.org