(This turned out not to be how I fixed it. I just configured exim and /etc/mailname as I do always and that fixed it. However, exim does not run as the SMTP server listening on port 25, that is the postfix installed by Zimbra. I don’t know how and if this exim configuration conflicts with zimbra.)

I have a zimbra server fooled into thinking it hosts a particular domain. Part of the fooling involves setting a different SMTP server than localhost for all outgoing mail. Luckily, Zimbra can do that.

The downside of that is that when you send mail to “root”, the other SMTP server qualifies it with its domain and the mail appears to be coming from the wrong server.

To fix it, specify this in the /opt/zimbra/postfix/conf/main.cf: 

myorigin = example.com

This seems to work without caveats. However, I don’t know if zimbra overwrites this config file at some point.

As always, pick a domain that exists, otherwise a lot of mailservers won’t accept it. You don’t even need an MX record, A or CNAME if enough.