Sendmail NooB is dying for a good night sleep |->

Hi DevShed Users!

As stated above, i didn't sleep all week due to a sendmail problem which should really be a basic matter.

the problem is as following:

i have myaccount.provider.nl coming out at my Public IP (including MX record) now, i installed my new slackware system with Hostname sandcastle and domain home.net
now when i send mail outside the accepting SMTP server bounces the messages because it could not resolve sandcastle.home.net
i tried the following: i named my machine myaccount with domain name provider.nl
this goes wrong as well because now all mail for provider.nl is considerred local. which is not so nice.

finally i deeply searched dox,faq's and forum's and found out i should be masquerading.

and so i added to sendmail.cf (compiling my home made MC files seem to cause more problems than they warn me about when editting the CF directly. the primary goal is to get it working, THEN i'll dive in to sendmail's specific's (can't wait))
the following:
Cwmyaccount.provider.nl
Djmyaccount.provider.nl
DMmyaccount.provider.nl

now when i send mail out it works!!! except for SOME mail servers.
they keep bouncing on "could not resolve" reasons.
when i send a test mail to my employer's domain, it arrives. the headers show's the mail is coming from the wrong (unresolvable) domain, but directly after that it is stated between ( ) the correct FQDN
all information in the headers contain the correct FQDN.
to some other domain's the message bounces with user unknown in my maillog

the ctladdr stated in my maillog still contains the faulty FQDN should i config a masq for this seperatly????

is the bouncing server not looking thurough enough at the headers? and decides to bounce on the VERY FIRST sight of the incorrect From: address ? or am i doing it wrong?

should it not be a obvious thing to install f.e. myhost.home.net (totally bogus names) and get sendmail working for whateverdomain.com ?

i can NOT find clear or descent dox about that

and as stated above, i intent to (try and) become a sendmail geek, but for now i must get this show on the road..

this is where i start crying out for help ;-)


!! HELP !!

A couple of recommendations:

1) Use your real DNS information when posting in a technical forum. "home.net" and "provider.nl" are evidently bogus and misleading for those trying to diagnose your problem. See http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoy...r-dns-data.html for further discussion

2) Sendmail tends to make things like this extremely difficult. Its logging is, frankly, crap (making troubleshooting virtually impossible) and it sucks in many other ways. If you want a proper mail server that myself and others will be able to help you debug, blow away sendmail and install qmail. You will have far fewer sleepless nights, I promise you.