🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm having a slight problem with smail 2.5.  I'm running Xenix/286
v2.2.3, with /usr/lib/mail/execmail replaced by Deliver and /bin/rmail
and friends replaced with their smail counterparts.  My /usr/lib/uucp/paths
file is rather short, listing only my immediate UUCP neighbors plus
a smart-host.  The problem manifests itself when someone attempts to
send mail to a domain address not in the paths file; for example,
"sco-list-request@uunet.uu.net".  Instead of sending the mail to the
defined smart-host for further resolution, smail just returns it to
the sender with an address resolution error.  "smail -d" indicates
that smail tries to resolve the host to ".uunet.uu.net", then
"uunet.uu.net", then ".uu.net", then "uu.net", then ".net", and
finally "net".  When all these fail, it decides that the mail is
undeliverable and returns it to the sender.

Curiously, if you invoke smail in rabid-rerouting mode (-R), things
work okay.  After trying all the different permutations of uunet.uu.net,
smail looks for the smart-host and sends it there.

Why is this happening?  What can I do to fix it?  Any ideas?

-- 
Marc Unangst                | "I think I have a bad disk.  Even though I
mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us   |  folded it to fit into my drive, it still
...!umich!leebai!mudos!mju  |  doesn't work..." -Caller to a tech support line