UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello,
Firstly, appologies, i am a windows man but i'm picking things up really quickly.!
We have some Unix boxes on our estate that route mail to a Windows SMTP server. This doesn't seem to work and after looking at the message headers it looks like the mail is getting bounced.
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mailrelay.XXXX.local.:
>>> HELO unix011.XXXX.local.
<<< 501 5.5.4 Invalid Address
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable

Now, i think it's because of the trailing dot in the address from the unix box. Am i correct? and if so, how can this be rectified?
The mail routing is working, it's just the Unix boxes failing to connect. The unix guys dont really know and i just want to fix it.

Any help would be great. Many thanks.

1)Make sure that the server has a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).
2)route ADD "network" MASK "subnet mask" "gateway ip"
3)make sure you have mailhost defined in your naming system (local files, NIS, NIS+, DNS, etc.).

Our change was to the sendmail.cf file as follows:

1. Peform the following on the subject systems.

# cd /etc/mail/cf/cf
# cp sendmail.mc `hostname`.mc
# cp submit.mc `hostname`.submit.mc

2. modify `hostname.mc as follows:

Change the current entry, listed below, to reflect the new entry listed
below:

Current entry:

define(`confFALLBACK_SMARTHOST', `mailhost$?m.$m$.')dnl

New entry:
define(`SMART_HOST', `mailhost$?m.$m$.')dnl

3. After the change:
# make `hostname`.cf `hostname`.submit.cf

4. Make a backup of the existing sendmail files in /etc/mail.
# cd /etc/mail
# cp sendmail.cf sendmail.cf~
# cp submit.cf submit.cf~

5. Copy the newly edited files.
# cd /etc/mail/cf/cf
# cp `hostname`.cf /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
# cp `hostname`.submit.cf /etc/mail/submit.cf

restart sendmail daemon/service

Thank you very much for your reply.

I will forward this on to the Unix guys.

Thanks again.

have I got your question wrong?

no, i dont think so. i'm a windows guy and the issue with the way Soraris is talking to the SMTP server. It's leaving the trailing dot. Does your answer fix this?