sendmail(1M) UNIX System V(BSD Compatibility Package) sendmail(1M)
NAME
sendmail - send mail over the internet
SYNOPSIS
/usr/ucblib/sendmail [-ba] [-bd] [-bi] [-bm] [-bp] [-bs] [-bt] [-bv]
[-bz] [-Cfile] [-dX] [-Ffullname] [-fname] [-hN] [-n] [-o xvalue]
[-q [time] ] [-rname] [-t] [-v] [address . . . ]
DESCRIPTION
sendmail sends a message to one or more people, 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 EOF, or a line
with a single dot and sends a copy of the letter found there to all of
the addresses listed. It determines the network to use based on the
syntax and contents of the addresses.
Local addresses are looked up in the local aliases(4) file, or by using
the YP name service, and aliased appropriately. In addition, if there is
a file in a recipient's home directory, sendmail forwards a copy of each
message to the list of recipients that file contains. Aliasing can be
prevented by preceding the address with a backslash. Normally the sender
is not included in alias expansions, for example, if `john' sends to
`group', and `group' includes `john' in the expansion, then the letter
will not be delivered to `john'.
sendmail will also route mail directly to other known hosts in a local
network. The list of hosts to which mail is directly sent is maintained
in the file /usr/lib/mailhosts.
The following options are available:
-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, waiting for incoming SMTP connections.
-bi Initialize the alias database.
-bm Deliver mail in the usual way (default).
-bp Print a summary of the mail queue.
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-bs Use the SMTP protocol as described in RFC 821. This flag implies
all the operations of the -ba flag that are compatible with SMTP.
-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.
-dX Set debugging value to X.
-Ffullname
Set the full name of the sender.
-fname Sets the name of the ``from'' person (that is, the sender of the
mail). -f can only be used by ``trusted'' users (who are listed
in the config file).
-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.
-Mid Attempt to deliver the queued message with message-id id.
-n Do not 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.
-rname An alternate and obsolete form of the -f flag.
-Rstring
Go through the queue of pending mail and attempt to deliver any
message with a recipient containing the specified string. This is
useful for clearing out mail directed to a machine which has been
down for awhile.
-t Read message for recipients. ``To:'', ``Cc:'', and ``Bcc:'' lines
will be scanned for people to send to. The ``Bcc:'' line will be
deleted before transmission. Any addresses in the argument list
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will be suppressed.
-v Go into verbose mode. Alias expansions will be announced, and so
on.
PROCESSING OPTIONS
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. The options are:
Afile Use alternate alias file.
c On mailers that are considered ``expensive'' to connect to, do not
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 - that is, actual delivery is done the next
time the queue is run.
D Run newaliases(1M) 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-system-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 (that is, commas
instead of spaces between addresses). If set, an adaptive
algorithm is used that will correctly determine the header format
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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.
Sfile Save statistics in the named file.
s Always instantiate the queue file, even under circumstances where
it is not strictly necessary.
Ttime Set the timeout on messages in the queue to the specified time.
After sitting in the queue for this amount of time, they 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.
If the first character of the user name is a vertical bar, the rest of
the user name is used as the name of a program to pipe the mail to. It
may be necessary to quote the name of the user to keep sendmail from
suppressing the blanks from between arguments.
sendmail returns an exit status describing what it did. The codes are
defined in sysexits.h.
EXOK Successful completion on all addresses.
EXNOUSER User name not recognized.
EXUNAVAILABLE
Catchall meaning necessary resources were not available.
EXSYNTAX Syntax error in address.
EXSOFTWARE Internal software error, including bad arguments.
EXOSERR Temporary operating system error, such as cannot fork.
EXNOHOST Host name not recognized.
EXTEMPFAIL Message could not be sent immediately, but was queued.
If invoked as newaliases, sendmail rebuilds the alias database. If
invoked as mailq, sendmail prints the contents of the mail queue.
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sendmail(1M) UNIX System V(BSD Compatibility Package) sendmail(1M)
FILES
Except for /etc/sendmail.cf, these pathnames are all specified in
/etc/sendmail.cf. Thus, these values are only approximations.
/usr/bin/uux to deliver uucp mail
/usr/bin/mail to deliver local mail
/var/spool/mqueue/*
temp files and queued mail
~/.forward list of recipients for forwarding messages
SEE ALSO
biff(1), mail(1), mailstat(1), newaliases(1), mconnect(1M), aliases(4)
Su, Zaw-Sing, and Jon Postel, The Domain Naming Convention for Internet
User Applications, RFC 819, Network Information Center, SRI
International, Menlo Park, Calif., August 1982
Postel, Jon, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, RFC 821, Network Information
Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif., August 1982
Crocker, Dave, Standard for the Format of ARPA-Internet Text Messages,
RFC 822, Network Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park,
Calif., August 1982
NOTES
Do not use the -bz option if you plan to run sendmail as a daemon, that
is, with the -bd option.
If the frozen configuration file, /usr/ucblib/sendmail.fc, was created
with the -bz option, running sendmail as a daemon (with the -bd option)
fails with a core dump.
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