Notes

Sendmail is a trademark of Sendmail, Inc.
[2]This is usually /usr/sbin on 4.4BSD and newer systems; many systems install it in /usr/lib. I understand it is in /usr/ucblib on System V Release 4.
[3]Some vendors ship them owned by bin; this creates a security hole that is not actually related to sendmail. Other important directories that should have restrictive ownerships and permissions are /bin, /usr/bin, /etc, /usr/etc, /lib, and /usr/lib.
[4]Actually, the pathname varies depending on the operating system; /etc is the preferred directory. Some older systems install it in /usr/lib/sendmail.cf, and I've also seen it in /usr/ucblib and /etc/mail. If you want to move this file, add -D_PATH_SENDMAILCF=\e"/file/name\e" to the flags passed to the C compiler. Moving this file is not recommended: other programs and scripts know of this location.
[5]The system libraries can reference other files; in particular, system library subroutines that sendmail calls probably reference /etc/passwd and /etc/resolv.conf.
[6]Except on Ultrix, which does not support facilities in the syslog.
[7]This format may vary slightly if your vendor has changed the syntax.
[8]This is the usual value of the HostStatusDirectory option; it can, of course, go anywhere you like in your filesystem.
[9]HP-UX 10 has service switch support, but since the APIs are apparently not available in the libraries sendmail does not use the native service switch in this release.
[10]Actually, any mailer that has the `A' mailer flag set will permit aliasing; this is normally limited to the local mailer.
[11]The gdbm package does not work.
[12]The AliasWait option is required in the configuration for this action to occur. This should normally be specified.
[13]That is, it sets its effective uid to the real uid; thus, if you are executing as root, as from root's crontab file or during system startup the root permissions will still be honored.
[14]On some systems the default is zero to turn the protocol off entirely.
[15]This verification includes looking up every address with the name server; this involves network delays, and can in some cases can be considerable.
[16]This is actually completely equivalent to $(host hostname$). In particular, a $: default can be used.
[17]You may want to use it for special per user extensions. For example, in the address jgm+foo@CMU.EDU; the +foo part is not part of the user name, and is passed to the local mailer for local use.
[18]As of version 8.6, all of these macros have reasonable defaults. Previous versions required that they be defined.
[19]For example, on some systems gethostname might return foo which would be mapped to foo.bar.com by gethostbyname.
[20]Older versions of sendmail didn't pre-define $j at all, so up until 8.6, config files always had to define $j.
[21]The old g option has been combined into the DefaultUser option.
[22]N.B.: the noreceipts flag causes sendmail to violate RFC 1891, which requires that return receipts be provided if Delivery Status Notifications are supported.
[23]When running as a daemon, it changes to this user after accepting a connection but before reading any SMTP commands.
[24]And of course, vendors are encouraged to add themselves to the list of recognized vendors by editing the routine setvendor in conf.c. Please send e-mail to sendmail@Sendmail.ORG to register your vendor dialect.
[25]That is, don't create new maps and then use mv(1) to move them into place. Since the maps are already open the new maps will never be seen.
[26]These instructions are known to be incomplete. A future version of the user database is planned including things such as finger service -- and good documentation.
[27]Actually, this is no longer true in SMTP; this information is contained in the envelope. The older ARPANET protocols did not completely distinguish envelope from header.
[28]If you do, please send updates to sendmail@Sendmail.ORG.
*Deprecated.
[30]This example is contrived and probably inaccurate for your environment. Glance over it to get an idea; nothing can replace looking at what your own system generates.

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This document was translated by troff2html v0.21 on January 4, 1999.


Claus Aßmann Please send comments to: <ca@informatik.uni-kiel.de>