CRON and SMTP

Ben Pfaff pfaffben@msu.edu
17 Dec 2000 20:41:30 -0500


szumlins <szumlins@msu.edu> writes:

> Okay, I have 2 questions. First, I just added a bash shell script to cron 
> that runs every half-hour. It works great, but unfortunately it sends an 
> e-mail to root every half hour as well confirming the tast being 
> complete. This means I get 48 identical e-mails daily. Anyone know how to 
> turn off logging for that particular script?

Add a line
	MAILTO=""
above the crontab line in question.

> Second, I can't seem to let my e-mailer on my Mac send mail through my 
> mail server. Pine works perfectly, but I have tried Netscape, Outlook, 
> and my Mac e-mailer, all give back the same message when I try to send:
> 
>       ** 550 relaying to <blah@blah.blah> prohibited by 
>       administrator (failed to find host name from IP address)
> 
>       ** SMTP server error "503 Valid RCPT TO <recipient> must precede 
>       DATA"
> 
> How do I allow hosts other than my server itself to use the server for 
> sending mail? I'm using exim, btw.

Numerous ways.  Easiest thing to do is to add the machine's IP
address to exim's "relay_domains" configuration variable.  You
can also set up a relaying authentication mechanism via SMTP's
AUTH methods.  Take a look at the exim manual, it's very
complete.

[N.B. to everyone: I missed the meeting because I'm pretty much
snowed in here at home.  The road has a couple of inches of
hard-packed snow on it and I don't dare drive.]