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cf/README for sendmail 8.12.3
Eric Allman of the Sendmail ConsortiumUseful links
Table of ContentClaus Assmann
DOMAINS
You will probably want to collect domain-dependent defines into one file, referenced by the DOMAIN macro. For example, the Berkeley domain file includes definitions for several internal distinguished hosts:
| Macro | Description |
|---|---|
| UUCP_RELAY | The host that will accept UUCP-addressed email. If not defined, all UUCP sites must be directly connected. |
| BITNET_RELAY | The host that will accept BITNET-addressed email. If not defined, the .BITNET pseudo-domain won't work. |
| DECNET_RELAY | The host that will accept DECNET-addressed email. If not defined, the .DECNET pseudo-domain and addresses of the form node::user will not work. |
| FAX_RELAY | The host that will accept mail to the .FAX pseudo-domain. The "fax" mailer overrides this value. |
| LOCAL_RELAY | The site that will handle unqualified names -- that is, names without an @domain extension. Normally MAIL_HUB is preferred for this function. LOCAL_RELAY is mostly useful in conjunction with FEATURE(`stickyhost') -- see the discussion of stickyhost below. If not set, they are assumed to belong on this machine. This allows you to have a central site to store a company- or department-wide alias database. This only works at small sites, and only with some user agents. |
| LUSER_RELAY | The site that will handle lusers -- that is, apparently local names that aren't local accounts or aliases. To specify a local user instead of a site, set this to ``local:username''. |
Any of these can be either ``mailer:hostname'' (in which case the mailer is the internal mailer name, such as ``uucp-new'' and the hostname is the name of the host as appropriate for that mailer) or just a ``hostname'', in which case a default mailer type (usually ``relay'', a variant on SMTP) is used.
WARNING: if you have a wildcard MX record matching your domain, you probably want to define these to have a trailing dot so that you won't get the mail diverted back to yourself.
The domain file can also be used to define a domain name, if needed (using "DD<domain>") and set certain site-wide features. If all hosts at your site masquerade behind one email name, you could also use MASQUERADE_AS here.
You do not have to define a domain -- in particular, if you are a single machine sitting off somewhere, it is probably more work than it's worth. This is just a mechanism for combining "domain dependent knowledge" into one place.