Can't understand how to use sendmail

[dustfinger1]

I am attempting to use sendmail out of the box in fedora 12 (maybe my first mistake? Is there anything which needs setting up?). My impression of how to use this (based on tutorials on the internet and reading the man page) is that you do something like the following:

[User@Computer mail]$ sudo sendmail -t
[sudo] password for User: 
To: user@gmail.com
From: whatever@whatever.com
Subject: hello

message body
.

I don't really know if this is right, but I can't find any sites that say otherwise. This is based mostly on looking at a couple bash scripts I read, which seemed to do this. Obviously, however, this doesn't work. Is there anyone out there who knows what I'm doing wrong.

[oiviv]

Usually I do it like this:

1- I write the text on OpenOffice Writer and then I save the text as: Whatever.txt

Is something like this:

To: whomever@gmail.com
From: me@gmail.com
Subject: Test


Message body.............................................. ...

2- At the same directory where I saved de Whatever.txt I tape the following at the prompt:

ssmtp whomever@gmail.com < Whatever.txt

[dustfinger1]

Thanks for the reply oiviv. Unfortunately, that doesn't work either. Sendmail exits without an error message, but the mail never arrives where I'm trying to send it to. Is there a way to make the program output more information?

---------- Post added at 07:18 PM CST ---------- Previous post was at 07:07 PM CST ----------

I just did a capture with wireshark. Sendmail does a dns lookup for the email address (in this case gmail). It gets the ip address of the gmail mail server, and then sends out a syn packet, which is never ack'd. It does this two or three times then gives up. Is there a reason that the syn packet is getting rejected? My internet connection is fine, so I don't think it's that

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by dustfinger1

I just did a capture with wireshark. Sendmail does a dns lookup for the email address (in this case gmail). It gets the ip address of the gmail mail server, and then sends out a syn packet, which is never ack'd. It does this two or three times then gives up. Is there a reason that the syn packet is getting rejected? My internet connection is fine, so I don't think it's that

Your ISP probably might block outgoing mail transmissions (other than those going to your ISP's own SMTP servers) if you're on a residential service plan.

That's why gmail uses SMTPS.

[David Batson]

Regarding sending email (in a general sense), either you need a wired (or wireless) connection from home that has your router or modem setup with your email account password. Otherwise you need to use an authenticated smtp server that asks for your password when you try to send email. You would need an authenticated server when sending email away from home. The alternative is to use webmail, where you log in at a website, compose and send email from there.

You can check with your isp to see if they have an authenticated smtp server - if you are trying to send email away from your home.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMTP-AUTH#SMTP-AUTH

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smtp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webmail

[dustfinger1]

Alright, I guess that's why. I'm in a university dorm, and I seriously doubt they'd let smtp go through. Thank you everyone for the help

[oiviv]

Did you installed ssmtp program and edited the file /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf correctly Dustfinger1?

---------- Post added at 01:00 AM CST ---------- Previous post was at 12:31 AM CST ----------

This is what I did and I have no problem sending mail:

#
# /etc/ssmtp.conf -- a config file for sSMTP sendmail.
#
# See the ssmtp.conf(5) man page for a more verbose explanation of the
# available options.
#

# The person who gets all mail for userids < 500
# Make this empty to disable rewriting.
root=mymail@gmail.com

# The place where the mail goes. The actual machine name is required
# no MX records are consulted. Commonly mailhosts are named mail.domain.com
# The example will fit if you are in domain.com and your mailhub is so named.
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com: 465

# Example for SMTP port number 2525
# mailhub=mail.your.domain:2525
# Example for SMTP port number 25 (Standard/RFC)
# mailhub=mail.your.domain
# Example for SSL encrypted connection
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:465

# Where will the mail seem to come from?
RewriteDomain= gmail.com

# The full hostname
Hostname=oiviv

# Set this to never rewrite the "From:" line (unless not given) and to
# use that address in the "from line" of the envelope.
FromLineOverride=YES

# Use SSL/TLS to send secure messages to server.
UseTLS=YES

authuser=mymail@gmail.com
authpass=mailpasswordxxxxxxxxxxx

# Use SSL/TLS certificate to authenticate against smtp host.
#UseTLSCert=YES

# Use this RSA certificate.
#TLSCert=/etc/ssl/certs/ssmtp.pem

# Get enhanced (*really* enhanced) debugging information in the logs
# If you want to have debugging of the config file parsing, move this option
# to the top of the config file and uncomment
#Debug=YES

The lines in blue represent the changes I did.
Well, I hope this can help!