SENDMAIL(1M-SysV) RISC/os Reference Manual SENDMAIL(1M-SysV)
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 carriage-return-line-feed (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. send-
mail 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.
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-bs Use the SMTP protocol as described in RFC821 on stan-
dard input and output. 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 debug-
ging configuration tables.
-bv Verify names only - do not try to collect or deliver
a message. Verify mode is normally used for validat-
ing 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 net-
work) 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 inter-
vals. 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
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used safely with -bd.
-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 adminis-
trator. 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 chapter on sendmail in the System
Administrator's Guide. 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.
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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 cir-
cumstances 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
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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 reci-
pients. 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.
sendmail returns an exit status describing what it did. The
codes are defined in <sysexits.h>:
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
mailaddr(7).
mail(1), mailx(1), rmail(1) in the User's Reference Manual.
syslog(3), aliases(4), forward(4) in the Programmer's Refer-
ence Manual.
DARPA Internet Request For Comments RFC819, RFC821, RFC822.
The chapters Sendmail Mail Router and Name Server Operations
Guide for BIND in the System Administrator's Guide.
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