"I've seen lots of hosts that were "unknown" or "misspelled," but what's an illegal one? The message could not be delivered to: Addressee: [log in to unmask] Reason: Illegal host/domain name found. <text deleted>" Hard to say. This could come from a misconfigured name service daemon startup file ( BSD Unix named(8) ) ... or, perhaps, someone has their forwarding mechanism enabled, and it maps to an unparseable address, kind of like if someone told you to go to 1234 E Main Street Avenue 24th Boulevard San Francisco CA New York NY 06604-123456789 ... )-: -- richard ===== -- richard childers [log in to unmask] 1 415 506 2411 oracle data center -- unix systems & network administration Klein flask for rent. Inquire within.