Notes

DISCLAIMER: This documentation is under modification.

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[3]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.

[4]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, /etc/mail, /usr/etc, /lib, and /usr/lib.

[5]Actually, the pathname varies depending on the operating system; /etc/mail is the preferred directory. Some older systems install it in /usr/lib/sendmail.cf, and I've also seen it in /usr/ucblib. 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.

[6]The system libraries can reference other files; in particular, system library subroutines that sendmail calls probably reference /etc/passwd and /etc/resolv.conf.

[7]Except on Ultrix, which does not support facilities in the syslog.

[8]This format may vary slightly if your vendor has changed the syntax.

[9]This is the usual value of the HostStatusDirectory option; it can, of course, go anywhere you like in your filesystem.

[10]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.

[11]Actually, any mailer that has the `A' mailer flag set will permit aliasing; this is normally limited to the local mailer.

[12]The gdbm package does not work.

[13]The AliasWait option is required in the configuration for this action to occur. This should normally be specified.

[14]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.

[15]On some systems the default is zero to turn the protocol off entirely.

[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 turns off support for RFC 1891 (Delivery Status Notification).

[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]These instructions are known to be incomplete. Other features are available which provide similar functionality, e.g., virtual hosting and mapping local addresses into a generic form as explained in cf/README.

[26]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.

[27]If you do, please send updates to sendmail@Sendmail.ORG.

*Deprecated.

[29]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.