Quoting henry nelson (netb@irm.nara.kindai.ac.jp):
> On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 06:45:48PM +0100, Richard Ibbotson wrote:
> > > Maybe edit your /etc/hosts file so that IP address is defined. And then
> > > maybe it won't do that DNS lookup (over the internet). And, probably
> 
> Very timidly since I'm not sure I'll suggest that you check the order
> for lookups defined in /etc/nsswitch.conf.  You'll want files first, I
> think: "hosts: files dns".

Or you could setup your DNS right.
If it has an ip address, it goes in DNS, forward and reverse.
Stray from this and you walk towards the dark side of administration
where you spend more efforts working around not doing it right than
you would have spent doing it right.


Also, try:
   echo "" | sendmail -bt -d8.20 

-d8 will show you the lookups happening.  (.20 is the level for flag 8,
I wish more tools had selective component debugging like this - I can
watch map looks up terrific detail with -d38.99 and not get blasted
by anything else).