Sendmail won't send mails

[Keith Sharp]

On Sun, 2006-03-05 at 14:38 +0000, leon wrote:
> David Woodhouse <dwmw2 at infradead.org> writes:
> 
>  | On Sun, 2006-03-05 at 14:17 +0000, leon wrote:
>  | > Here is /var/log/maillog
>  | 
>  | Connection timed out when trying to contact any host outside cam.ac.uk.
>  | That's hardly surprising; the UCS started filtering outgoing port 25
>  | from undergrad machines (and indeed any machines not explictly
>  | permitted) about a decade ago.
>  | 
>  | Use a smarthost -- probably smtp.hermes.
>  | 
>  | -- 
>  | dwmw2
> Very informative. Thanks.
> 
> 1. Can I choose another port to workaround?
> 2. How to delete queue mails in /var/spool/mqueue:
>    ? rm -rf /var/spool/mqueue/*

That probably won't work, somewhere a firewall is preventing OUTBOUND
connections to port 25, this is a common practice these days.

What you need to do is:

1) Edit /etc/mail/sendmail.mc and uncomment line 22:

dnl define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.your.provider')

by deleting "dnl".  Replace smtp.your.provider with the correct
smarthost for your network.

2) Stop and restart sendmail (as root):

	/sbin/service sendmail restart

All the mail in the queue should now be sent, this might take several
minutes, and future emails should work as well.

Keith.