A client is using NMS FormMail 3.14c1 (renamed as thingie.pl) on a site hosted
on my VPS server, running Apache/1.3.31 (Unix), WHM 9.4.0, cPanel 9.4.1-S65,
exim-4.41-140.
Client had been using his domain name or IP as the specified SMTP server
and all was working well until recently, when I think an Exim upgrade
caused the connection to his SMTP server to be rejected.
If the SMTP server is specified as "local host" the connection is accepted,
but then Exim rejects the message and FormMail says:
SMTP command [.] gave response [550 Administrative prohibition ]
at (eval 8) line 358, <GEN0> line 9.
When I look in /var/log/exim_rejectlog I find this entry:
after DATA: there is no valid sender in any header line
Envelope-from: <postmaster@???>
Envelope-to: <user1@???>
<user2@???>
P Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=www.domain.com)
by server.host.name with smtp (Exim 4.41)
id 1C2lNU-0002w1-K4; Thu, 02 Sep 2004 02:47:24 -0400
P Received: from [IP_of_form_submitter]
by http://www.domain.com (NMS FormMail 3.14c1)
with HTTP; Thu, 2 Sep 2004 06:47:24 GMT
(script-name /cgi-bin/thingie.pl)
(http-host domain.com)
(http-referer https://domain.com/bpinfo.html)
So it seems that Exim is rejecting the message because it finds no valid
senders (even though <postmaster@???> should be a valid sender).
Indeed, if I uncheck the box in the WHM Exim Configuration Editor labeled
"Verify the existence of email senders" the problem goes away -- but this
is too big a price to pay, I believe.
I'm guessing that there might be a simple fix by adding some directive to
the Exim configuration file, but I don't know enough to mess around with
that. If one of the aficionados here might be so kind as to tell me what I
might try without hurting myself, using the advanced mode of the WHM Exim
Configuration Editor, I'd be ever so grateful.
-- curmudgeon
