Hi Kastus, Many thanks for your reply. You were right about a DNS problem. In the end I removed all entries from /etc/mail/access and inserted the corresponding addresses for each host or domain I wish to relay in dot notation into /etc/mail/relay-domains. Previously any entries that were not in IP dot notation in this file failed to provide any benefit. Also interestingly /etc/mail/access (and access.db) failed to help in solving this problem even when ip addresses were given. Anyway problem now solved ..... thankyou regards Garry
sendmail(version 8.10.2) to relay mail messages from a limited number of domains that I specify in advance.
However, if a host from the listed domain attempts to relay a message to a third party email address it recieves the following error:
"An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: 5.7.1 <garry.smith@computer.org>// Relaying denied. IP name lookup failed [x.x.x.x] Please check the message recipients and try again"
This might mean that there is no reverse DNS for the IP of the host who relays through you. Usually it is used to prevent spamming. It is possible to turn it off in sendmail configuration file. Sorry I don't know the details. Or you may add reverse DNS for the addresses you have problems with, if its under your control. I switched to postfix recently, it's much more understandable than sendmail.
-Kastus.