Rails - Mar 2005 - newbie question on ActionMailer

Hi,

I normally try to really figure things out before asking a stupid 
question but I''m tight on time and the stack trace indicates a pretty 
low-level problem... something scary for a newb.

I''m hoping that someone can just say "you forgot to polish the
widget
before turning the crank" or some other simple newbie-slap.

I''m trying to get actionmailer to send a simple test message.

My development.rb file has the following config:

ActionMailer::Base.server_settings = {
   :address  => "192.168.1.2",
   :port  => 25,
   }

The code in my controller is:

def sendmail
   mail = Notifications::create_contact_us()
   Notifications::deliver(mail)
   redirect_to :controller => "contact", :action =>
"index"
end

My "Notifications" contact_us method is:

   def contact_us()
     @subject    = ''Notifications#contact_us''
     @body       = {}
     @recipients = ''trevor@real_name_protected.com''
     @from       = ''test@real_name_protected.com''
     @sent_on    = Time.now
     @headers    = {}
   end

and my view for "contact_us" is a simple, non-parameterised message of
success.

Unfortunately I get the following stack trace (note that using etherial 
shows no packets at all across the network):

Errno::EINVAL in Contact#sendmail

Invalid argument

app/controllers/contact_controller.rb:11:in `sendmail''
script/server:48

Show framework trace

d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:197:in `sysread''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:197:in `rbuf_fill''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:196:in `timeout''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:55:in `timeout''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:196:in `rbuf_fill''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:160:in `readuntil''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:171:in `readline''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:664:in `recv_response''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:396:in `do_start''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:396:in `critical''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:396:in `do_start''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:378:in `start''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/smtp.rb:316:in `start''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionmailer-0.7.1/lib/action_mailer/base.rb:155:in
`perform_delivery_smtp''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionmailer-0.7.1/lib/action_mailer/base.rb:145:in
`send''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionmailer-0.7.1/lib/action_mailer/base.rb:145:in
`deliver''
d:/trevor/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-1.5.1/lib/action_controller/base.rb:678:in
`send''

I''ve cut off the rest of the trace because I''m not sure
it''s relevant
and I don''t want to clog the list with too much guff.

So... anyone seen and solved anything like this?  Any pointers on how a 
complete newb can debug the problem?

Thanks for looking,
Trevor

Please ignore me.  I am an utter plank.

First of all, there *were* packets going across the network - I was 
being stupid with etheral.

Second of all (now that I can see the packets), failing to set :domain 
in development.rb meant that the smtp "elho" command was going across 
the wire without a host name - my mail server was barfing on that.

Sorry to waste your time...

Trevor

Trevor Squires wrote:

<snipped-to-protect-the-clueless>