[Mimedefang] Problems getting started

[Josh Fryman]

hi all,

i'm completely new at this mail filter trickery, so please bear 
with me.  we've got a production mail server, running RH8, that
i've tried twice now to install the combo sendmail+mimedefang+SA
on.  the HOWTO i've been following is here:

   http://www.rudolphtire.com/mimedefang-howto/

i can only attempt to do the switch late at night or on weekends
after 5, due ot the production nature.  i've got a nice little
snapshot of the existing config that i can revert to with a 
quick "cp -r ~/mail-backup/* /" ... yes, we should have a backup
system to test on, but we don't (insert political clauses here).

okay, that said.  the first time through, i got mimedefang to
run with uvscan working, but it never called SA.  i got the stamps
from defang, and uvscan would bounce tests nicely... but SA never
showed up.  running "mimedefang.pl -features" as user defang 
reported a valid SA available... worse, every attempt to send 
mail through the system to an outside address complains "Relaying
not allowed" ... despite everything working perfectly under the 
RPMd sendmail baseline.

two weeks go by.  i try again. the howto has been updated with
some new packages, and being convinced i did something wrong
somewhere i back up and re-do the whole process.   this time,
*nothing* works.  mimedefang bails with "initialization failed",
and everything is rejected everywhere.  (plus the bogus relay
complaint.)

clearly, i'm an idiot.  the HOWTO seems idiot-proof if you just
follow the steps... but it isn't working for me.  what's the 
best way for me to get help here?  what files should i post? 
or should i describe the setup we're running first?  or is there
an implicit thing that everyone knows that's keeping me from
seeing the light?

any help would be appreciated.  i'd _really_ love to make this
work.

thanks,

josh