There is a host name resolution conflict in either nmh or ypbind or sendmail or how the /etc/nsswitch file is set up on (at least) standard Red Hat 5.2 and probably other versions. It's your choice which is really the culprit :). The problem manifests itself when attempting to resolve the machine name of the local machine when sending mail through exmh. If the following line is present in the /etc/hosts file, then sendmail bombs with the classic "we do not relay" message: 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost This is different than the Red Hat standard where the nickname and fully qualified name are switched. The reason is, nmh resolves to the first name, but of course, sendmail says, I don't know that machine name (I only know localhost), and bombs. So, why do I have it in this order? Because ypbind needs it this way (at least generically). ypbind requires the fully qualified name in order to authorize remote hosts to connect. In any case, that's the problem. Good luck. Dan
Have you tried adding localhost.localdomain to /etc/sendmail.cw? That should stop sendmail from squawking. I'm also not sure why you think that the line in /etc/hosts must have localhost.localdomain first in order for ypbind to work. This appears to be a configuration issue, not a Red Hat distribution problem.
It's not necessarily that the ypserver wants to see localhost.localdomain (sorry 'bout the confusion), but rather the fully qualified machine name(e.g., sapphire.fnal.gov) instead of the nickname (e.g., sapphire). Our Sun and IRIX yp servers get awful confused when they see the nickname first instead of the fully qualified machine names when trying to do the reverse name lookup to authorize remote logins. So, to keep things consistent, I also put the localhost.localdomain entry first in /etc/hosts. I'll try the sendmail fix as well; maybe this should also be added to the default Red Hat sendmail.cw in the future? Cheers, Dan