I configured nullmailer and sent a test msg through to my smtp account and finally got a 250 response which means it (and subsequent test msgs) was accepted for delivery. The email header stated that the message was from root@my_laptop.my_laptop though and I never received the messages. I finally submitted a ticket to the email service and after a few back and forths, he was able to determine that the logs on his end gave a 450 code
It would have been nice if the host would check if my address was good before accepting delivery. Maybe this is normal; I can't say, due to lack of experience.status=deferred (host xxxx said: 450 4.1.8 <root@mylaptop.mylaptop>: Sender address rejected: Domain not found (in reply to MAIL FROM command))
The best I could do to get my address to appear as if it was from webmaster@mywebsite.com instead of root@my_laptop.my_laptop by changing configs and hostfiles was webmaster@my_laptop.mywebsite.com The only way I was able to get emails through so I could read them through my email client was to change my actual computername to mywebsite.com
There has got to be a way for some sort of rewrite so that local emails can have a regular email address on them. I don't think I am understanding hosts and hostname files. Come to think of it, I had to reboot to get the proper name to send emails. I assume having my computer name as a FQDN is a bad idea because of security issues? What am I not understanding about setting hostnames?
Edited poorly written paragraph.
