I have had problems from time to time in places like at home where I simply run a script to get my ppp connection going. Like you my sendmail was getting unhappy. One simple solution can be to add your machine to the /etc/hosts file and them sendmail will be able to use the information there. My boot process was ungoddly slow until I did this.
-- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .