SENDMAIL(1M) SysV SENDMAIL(1M)
NAME
sendmail - send mail over the internet
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/sendmail [ flags ] [ address ... ]
newaliases
mailq [ -v ]
DESCRIPTION
Sendmail sends a message to one or more recipients , routing the message
over whatever networks are necessary. Sendmail does internetwork
forwarding as necessary to deliver the message to the correct place.
Sendmail is not intended as a user interface routine; other programs
provide user-friendly front ends; sendmail is used only to deliver pre-
formatted messages.
With no flags, sendmail reads its standard input up to an end-of-file or
a line consisting only of a single dot and sends a copy of the message
found there to all of the addresses listed. It determines the network(s)
to use based on the syntax and contents of the addresses.
Local addresses are looked up in a file and aliased appropriately.
Aliasing can be prevented by preceding the address with a backslash.
Normally the sender is not included in any alias expansions, e.g., if
`john' sends to `group', and `group' includes `john' in the expansion,
then the letter will not be delivered to `john'.
Flags are:
-ba Go into ARPANET mode. All input lines must end with a CR-LF,
and all messages will be generated with a CR-LF at the end.
Also, the ``From:'' and ``Sender:'' fields are examined for
the name of the sender.
-bd Run as a daemon. This requires Berkeley IPC. Sendmail will
fork and run in background listening on socket 25 for
incoming SMTP connections. This is normally run from /etc/rc
.
-bi Initialize the alias database.
-bm Deliver mail in the usual way (default).
-bp Print a listing of the queue.
-bs Use the SMTP protocol as described in RFC821 on standard
input and output. This flag implies all the operations of
the -ba flag that are compatible with SMTP.
-bb Read batched SMTP (BSMTP) commands from standard input.
-bt Run in address test mode. This mode reads addresses and
shows the steps in parsing; it is used for debugging
configuration tables.
-bv Verify names only - do not try to collect or deliver a
message. Verify mode is normally used for validating users
or mailing lists.
-bz Create the configuration freeze file.
-Cfile Use alternate configuration file. Sendmail refuses to run as
root if an alternate configuration file is specified. The
frozen configuration file is bypassed.
-dX Set debugging value to X.
-Ffullname Set the full name of the sender.
-fname Sets the name of the ``from'' person (i.e., the sender of the
mail). -f can only be used by ``trusted'' users (normally
root, daemon, and network) or if the person you are trying to
become is the same as the person you are.
-hN Set the hop count to N. The hop count is incremented every
time the mail is processed. When it reaches a limit, the
mail is returned with an error message, the victim of an
aliasing loop. If not specified, ``Received:'' lines in the
message are counted.
-n Don't do aliasing.
-oxvalue Set option x to the specified value. Options are described
below.
-q[time] Processed saved messages in the queue at given intervals. If
time is omitted, process the queue once. Time is given as a
tagged number, with `s' being seconds, `m' being minutes, `h'
being hours, `d' being days, and `w' being weeks. For
example, ``-q1h30m'' or ``-q90m'' would both set the timeout
to one hour thirty minutes. If time is specified, sendmail
will run in background. This option can be used safely with
-bd.
-Mident Process the queued message with the queue id ident.
-Raddr Process the queued messages that have the string addr in one
of the recipient addresses.
-Saddr Process the queued messages that have the string addr in the
sender address.
-rname An alternate and obsolete form of the -f flag.
-t Read message for recipients. To:, Cc:, and Bcc: lines will
be scanned for recipient addresses. The Bcc: line will be
deleted before transmission. Any addresses in the argument
list will be suppressed, that is, they will not receive
copies even if listed in the message header.
-v Go into verbose mode. Alias expansions will be announced,
etc.
There are also a number of processing options that may be set. Normally
these will only be used by a system administrator. Options may be set
either on the command line using the -o flag or in the configuration
file. These are described in detail in the Domain/OS System
Administration Reference. The options are:
Afile Use alternate alias file.
c On mailers that are considered ``expensive'' to connect to,
don't initiate immediate connection. This requires queueing.
dx Set the delivery mode to x. Delivery modes are `i' for
interactive (synchronous) delivery, `b' for background
(asynchronous) delivery, and `q' for queue only - i.e.,
actual delivery is done the next time the queue is run.
D Try to automatically rebuild the alias database if necessary.
ex Set error processing to mode x. Valid modes are `m' to mail
back the error message, `w' to ``write'' back the error
message (or mail it back if the sender is not logged in), `p'
to print the errors on the terminal (default), `q' to throw
away error messages (only exit status is returned), and `e'
to do special processing for the BerkNet. If the text of the
message is not mailed back by modes `m' or `w' and if the
sender is local to this machine, a copy of the message is
appended to the file ``dead.letter'' in the sender's home
directory.
Fmode The mode to use when creating temporary files.
f Save UNIX-style From lines at the front of messages.
gN The default group id to use when calling mailers.
Hfile The SMTP help file.
i Do not take dots on a line by themselves as a message
terminator.
Ln The log level.
m Send to ``me'' (the sender) also if I am in an alias
expansion.
o If set, this message may have old style headers. If not set,
this message is guaranteed to have new style headers (i.e.,
commas instead of spaces between addresses). If set, an
adaptive algorithm is used that will correctly determine the
header format in most cases.
Qqueuedir Select the directory in which to queue messages.
rtimeout The timeout on reads; if none is set, sendmail will wait
forever for a mailer. This option violates the word (if not
the intent) of the SMTP specification, show the timeout
should probably be fairly large.
Sfile Save statistics in the named file.
s Always instantiate the queue file, even under circumstances
where it is not strictly necessary. This provides safety
against system crashes during delivery.
Ttime Set the timeout on undelivered messages in the queue to the
specified time. After delivery has failed (e.g., because of
a host being down) for this amount of time, failed messages
will be returned to the sender. The default is three days.
tstz,dtz Set the name of the time zone.
uN Set the default user id for mailers.
In aliases, the first character of a name may be a vertical bar to cause
interpretation of the rest of the name as a command to pipe the mail to.
It may be necessary to quote the name to keep sendmail from suppressing
the blanks from between arguments. For example, a common alias is:
msgs: "|/usr/ucb/msgs -s"
Aliases may also have the syntax ``:include:filename'' to ask sendmail to
read the named file for a list of recipients. For example, an alias such
as:
poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list"
would read /usr/local/lib/poets.list for the list of addresses making up
the group.
If invoked as newaliases, sendmail will rebuild the alias database. If
invoked as mailq, sendmail will print the contents of the mail queue.
FILES
Except for /usr/lib/sendmail.cf, these pathnames are all specified in
/usr/lib/sendmail.cf. Thus, these values are only approximations.
/usr/lib/aliases raw data for alias names
/usr/lib/aliases.pag
/usr/lib/aliases.dir data base of alias names
/usr/lib/sendmail.cf configuration file
/usr/lib/sendmail.fc frozen configuration
/usr/lib/sendmail.hf help file
/usr/lib/sendmail.st collected statistics
/usr/spool/mqueue/* temp files
SEE ALSO
binmail(1), mail(1), syslog(3), aliases(4), mailaddr(5), rc(1M);
Domain/OS System Administration Reference;
DARPA Internet Request For Comments RFC819, RFC821, RFC822;
Sendmail - An Internetwork Mail Router (SMM:16);
Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide (SMM:7)