From: Sam (sam@email-scan.webcircle.com)                                       
Subject: Re: 553 Domain name required                                          
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail                                                 
Date: 1999/12/31                                                               

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In article <386BB9B0.85C1EDC6@netins.net>,
        Jim Turner <jimt@netins.net> writes:

> I am in need of some help.  This problem has plagued me
> before and I've never found an answer.
> 
> It seems to involve MH more than any other mailhandler, but
> it has happened in pine, elm, etc.  I get the above mentioned
> error (553 Domain name required).  Here's the setup.
> 
> Upgrading from 8.8.8 to 8.9.3.  Everything is going swimmingly
> (testing via telnetting directly to port 25 shows all is well).  Sending
> 
> from mh gives me this:
> 
> post: problem initializing server; [RPLY] 553 <jimt>... Domain name
> required
> send: message not delivered to anyone

That seems to be a straightforward error.  The address "jimt" is completely
meaningless, as far as a mail server is concerned.  Your mail client does
not, for some reason, add the domain to the sender's address.

This appears to be a configuration issue with your mail client, and has
nothing to do with sendmail.

> Just for kicks, I wanted to see how another one of my machines with
> 8.8.8
> handled the null domain.  So by telnet, I get :
> 
> mail from: jimt
> 250 jimt... Sender ok

Well, it does seem that earlier versions of sendmail have compensated,
somewhat, for these kinds of client misconfigurations.

That, apparently, is no longer the case, and I think that It's A Good
Thing[tm].

> Reading through the FAQ, the Features section on sendmail.org, searching
> this group on deja, and reading the Bat book have all lead to
> `always_add_domain'. This feature does not work (or I'm misunderstanding
> it's purpose.).

That might be referring to local mail submitted to sendmail from the
command line.  Here, you are apparently talking SMTP, and you are expected
to supply valid SMTP commands, with valid RFC 821 addresses.  <jimt> is not
a valid RFC 821 address, the domain is missing.
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