fc3, sendmail, dovecot: cannot receive from outside

[rado]

> 
> > yes rivers-bend.com is my domain. yes, in my zone files it's called out
> > as IN mail.rivers-bend.com. and mail.rivers-bend.com  209.205.179.141(my
> > static ip). I can't "dig" it from the outside but you should be able to
> > do: $ dig mail at rivers-bend.com. well I could do it from a dial-up I
> > guess but it's illegal to go both ways thru the router like that.
> > Yes, 209.205.179.141 is the public ip for the FC3 host when it's
> > running. the sendmail on that machine,(fc3) is sendmail-8.13.1-2. 
> > sendmail on this machine,(fc2) fully updated is: sendmail-8.12.11-4.6
> 
> > John Rose
> 
> Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:41:55 +0100
> From: Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists at uni-x.org>

> I must confess that somewhere you lost me. What is your problem? You
> expect mail coming into your Sendmail on the FC3 host which has no DNS
> entry? Or is that one a backend MTA? Sorry, I don't understand what you
> wonder about and what you tried to configure so far.
> 
> Alexander

Hi Alexander,
...sorry if I confused you; let me see if I can clarify.

rivers-bend.com is my domain w/a public ip of 209.205.179.141

This box right here is rbmain1 [10.0.0.10] running on fc2 which is fully
updated. It's running dns, sendmail 8.12.11-4.6, dovecot, and other
things w/no problems.

the box w/problems is rbmain2 [10.0.0.12] running on fc3 w/no updating
yet.
My intentions are to mirror 10.0.0.10 w/10.0.0.12. After it's all set
up, I'll probably use rsync or something to sync up the 2 machines and
if/when 10.0.0.10 ever goes down, just run a script on 10.0.0.12 and it
will take over.

Now, while setting 10.0.0.12 up, presently I shut down 10.0.0.10 because
I don't have scripts in place yet. While 10.0.0.10 is down, dns in
10.0.0.12 takes over and works fine. 

Now the problem: using evolution, I can mail to myself i.e. from:
rado at rivers-bend.com to:rivers-bend.com and it will pop fine.
I can send mail out to my hotmail acct: radopowder at hotmail.com, and it
is received...I reply from hotmail to rado at rivers-bend.com, and it never
comes. Mind you this is in the fc3 sys, [10.0.0.12].
ok, let's shut down 10.0.0.12 now.

bring up 10.0.0.10... that's this box. the email reply that I was trying
to receive in 10.0.0.12 shows up here in 10.0.0.10. 

Somehow mail is being stopped from being received on 10.0.0.12.
here's a list of my open ports:

[root at rbmain2 ~]# nmap -sT rbmain2

Starting nmap 3.70 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2005-03-09 08:05
CST
Interesting ports on rbmain2.rivers-bend.com (10.0.0.12):
(The 1654 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
PORT    STATE SERVICE
22/tcp  open  ssh
25/tcp  open  smtp
53/tcp  open  domain
110/tcp open  pop3
111/tcp open  rpcbind
113/tcp open  auth

Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.283 seconds
 
Don't forget, Alexander, 10.0.0.12 is only up while I'm working on it.
when I need to check email like this msg list, I have to shut down
10.0.0.12 and bring up this machine, 10.0.0.10. I also monitor my
hotmail acct. regularly radopowder at hotmail.com which could be used for
testing communication. That's always up.

Ok, I hope this clears it up. Alexander, if you want to see logs or
testing please just ask. 
thx,
John Rose

-- 
Trust Everyone. Just make sure you brand your cattle.