sendmail issues

[Coburn64]

Hey all.

I'm running Debian 4.0r5 on my server and I installed sendmail. As the server is going to be used for my website, I've coded in my website a feature to 'resend user info' that uses mail() in PHP.

What the issue is that sendmail takes too long to start up when the server is booting. I need to set sendmail to send email through my ISP's mail server.

Is this possible? I found a idea googling, and this is what it said:

In /etc/mail/sendmail.mc

Edit this line from

dnl define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.your.provider')
to define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.local.isp')
Remove "dnl"

Add your isp, "smtp.local.isp" is only an example

Be careful not to remove the quotation marks from (`SMART_HOST',`smtp.local.isp') if you look closely they are not all the same

Remake sendmail.cf, restart sendmail

I looked at sendmail.cf and didn't find that. Can anyone help? Thanks!

[cheapscotchron]

If all you want to do is send mail (and not receive), then the smarthost option will work for you.

Who is your ISP? What smtp gateway do they provide for you for sending email? You need to use the smtp server gateway that they provide for outbound email as your smarthost in your sendmail config file.

e.g. if your ISP was comcast and the smtp gateway was smtp.comcast.net
then your smarthost confifg would look like...
dnl define(`SMART_HOST',`smtp.comcast.net')

[Coburn64]

Alright, I'll give this a shot.

Does sendmail support PLAIN/LOGIN for SMTP Servers? My ISP's smtp server requires authorisation for outgoing mail.

[cheapscotchron]

yes, it does. Read this link...
Configuring Sendmail with smarthost Ubuntu Gutsy - Scalix Wiki