This may be a simple fix

Some of the messages I am sending from the server using mail() in PHP are not getting delivered. When I look in the maillog (which you must do as *root* i found out) i find the following error messages after each of these failures.

delivery 72578: failure: Connected_to_68.6.19.3_but_sender_was_rejected./Remote_host_said:_553_hostname.domainname.com_does_not_exist/

delivery 72581: failure: Sorry,_I_couldn't_find_any_host_named_hostname.domainname.com

This perplexes me because it is true, the combination of hostname.domainname.com does not exist to my knowledge. It was set by Rackshack when I purchased the server but probably does not exist in any real sense as a 'remote_host'.

My question is, where can i modify that hostname to a legitimate 'remote_host' so auto-generated email from my server is deliverable to everyone and what would i set it to so that it is 'legitimate?'

Thank you for any help you can offer,
Ragnar

I had the same problem because my hostname was not resolving correctly to my server. If your hostname is host.yourdomain.com, you need to add type-A record "host" to "yourdomain.com".

Login as appliance administrator, go to Domains, click on yourdomain.com, click on DNS, choose A from the list, and click Add. On the newly loaded page, enter your main IP address and click Update.

Wheeeeeeeeew!

After a lot of research it looks like AOL, being the dumb MoFos that they are, bounce anything with an anonymous Return-Path in the header. They are, to my limited knowledge, the only ones who do this. Unfortunately, a large number of the population uses this rediculous servece.

In order to avoid having the rather criptic Return-Path auto-assigned by the Qmail server on the way out, you can designate it in your PHP Mail() function like so.

//send the message
$recipient = "$tbFName $tbLName <$tbEmail>";
$emailFrom = "abc Co. ";
mail( $recipient, "Your Registration Has Been Received!",
$message, "From: ".$emailFrom."nReturn-Path: abcCo");

voy-la!

(i hate aol. if anyone knows how to pull the plug on that waste of (cyber)space, please do the world a favor.)