From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

For some time now gmail accounts have been rejecting email from
my freebsd box with a "host is not authenticated" message. I gather
this is related to my not configuring TLS authentication (at least)
and maybe Google's desire to push me to get a gmail account, which
I'd rather not do.

Is there any literature on the 'net regarding what it takes to set
up a sendmail server to communicate successfully to a gmail account?
The server in question is FreeBSD stable/14 with the default sendmail configuration. Reverse DNS works, so that would seem to provide a
traceable identity via my domain registrar. Mail to other destinations
goes through without a hitch.

I've looked into the matter in the past and gotten lost in the
weeds, as I'm not a programmer, just a somewhat adventurous user.

If anybody knows a clear description of what's required please
leave a link!

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska



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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

On 16.04.2026 15:52 Uhr bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Is there any literature on the 'net regarding what it takes to set
up a sendmail server to communicate successfully to a gmail account?
The server in question is FreeBSD stable/14 with the default sendmail configuration. Reverse DNS works, so that would seem to provide a
traceable identity via my domain registrar. Mail to other destinations
goes through without a hitch.

Do you want to use the local sendmail to send SMTP authenticated mail
via your own gmail account (like you do with any mail software) or do
you want to deliver mail to other users @gmail.com?

If the latter is the case, make sure you have matching PTR DNS records
and SPF for both IPv6 and IPv4 and DKIM/DMARC.
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1776347560muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

Because Google et.al. make up their own rules they require you to
set up DKIM (or SPF).
However, even if you do that, your mail might not reach any recipient
at gmail (but their "spam" folders...)
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

Marco Moock <mm@dorfdsl.de> wrote:

On 16.04.2026 15:52 Uhr bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Is there any literature on the 'net regarding what it takes to set
up a sendmail server to communicate successfully to a gmail account?
The server in question is FreeBSD stable/14 with the default sendmail
configuration. Reverse DNS works, so that would seem to provide a
traceable identity via my domain registrar. Mail to other destinations
goes through without a hitch.

Do you want to use the local sendmail to send SMTP authenticated mail
via your own gmail account (like you do with any mail software) or do
you want to deliver mail to other users @gmail.com?

The latter.

If the latter is the case, make sure you have matching PTR DNS records
and SPF for both IPv6 and IPv4 and DKIM/DMARC.

If I'm not mistaken, PTR records are those used for reverse lookup,
from IP numbers back to names. Far as I can tell, those lookups work
correctly at least when I'm querying my own nameservers via nslookup.

The matters of SPF, DKIM and DMARC are where I get lost in the
alphabet soup. A plain-English discussion of those topics is
what's needed and I've not found one low enough for my level.
It isn't obvious to me why the problem needs to be any harder
than getting ssh to work, and that's entirely automatic. Or,
maybe, that expectation reveals a deep misunderstanding of
what has to be done.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska


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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

Claus A|fmann <INVALID_NO_CC_REMOVE_IF_YOU_DO_NOT_POST_ml+sendmail(-no-copies-please)@esmtp.org> wrote:

Because Google et.al. make up their own rules they require you to
set up DKIM (or SPF).
However, even if you do that, your mail might not reach any recipient
at gmail (but their "spam" folders...)

At this stage, sending mail to somebody's gmail spam box would be
a huge accomplishment!

Thanks for writing,

bob prohaska

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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

It isn't obvious to me why the problem needs to be any harder
than getting ssh to work, and that's entirely automatic. Or,

Because the problem is entirely made up by some big tech companies.

"We're the phone company. We don't care, we don't have to."
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

On 18.04.2026 02:39 Uhr bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

The matters of SPF, DKIM and DMARC are where I get lost in the
alphabet soup. A plain-English discussion of those topics is
what's needed and I've not found one low enough for my level.

Read the wikipedia articles about them, they give a brief introduction.


For the rest, ask in comp.mail.misc
--
kind regards
Marco

Send spam to 1776472761muell@stinkedores.dorfdsl.de

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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

According to <bp@www.zefox.net>:

The matters of SPF, DKIM and DMARC are where I get lost in the
alphabet soup.

SPF is a DNS record in your DNS zone that says where your mail comes from.
This should do the trick:

examp1e.com. IN TXT "v=spf1 mx ~all"

except use your domain name rather than examp1e.com.

DKIM is a digital signature header added to each outgoing message, and
a DNS record recipients use to check the signature. The usual way to
make that work with sendmail is to install the OpenDKIM package, and
a milter package that connects it to sendmail. The packages have OK documentation and can generate the signing key and the DNS record.

DMARC says whether you have a policy about signing your mail. Since
you don't need one (regardless of what some "experts" say), this will do:

_dmarc.examp1e.com IN TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none;"

I'd be surprised if there weren't cookbooks about how to do this with
sendmail. Here's little script I wrote that installs a working
postfix setup with mailboxes, DKIM, SPF, DMARC, and webmail:

https://github.com/icann/eaiselfhost

FYI, anyone who claims that this authentication stuff is gratuitously
complex has never talked to people who run large mail systems. They
are not dumb, and the malicious traffic they have to deal with is
unbelievable.
--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
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From Newsgroup: comp.mail.sendmail

Claus A|fmann <INVALID_NO_CC_REMOVE_IF_YOU_DO_NOT_POST_ml+sendmail(-no-copies-please)@esmtp.org>
writes:

"We're the phone company. We don't care, we don't have to."

see figure 1


Bj|+rn
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