sendmail-8.18.1

Introduction to sendmail

The sendmail package contains a Mail Transport Agent (MTA).

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS 12.1 platform.

Package Information

sendmail Dependencies

Required

OpenLDAP-2.6.7 (client)

Recommended

Optional

ghostscript-10.02.1 (for creating PDF documentation), Procmail-3.22 (the configuration proposed below requires that procmail be present at run-time), and nph

Installation of sendmail

Before building sendmail, create the required user, group and directory with the following commands issued as the root user:

groupadd -g 26 smmsp                               &&
useradd -c "Sendmail Daemon" -g smmsp -d /dev/null \
        -s /bin/false -u 26 smmsp                  &&
chmod -v 1777 /var/mail                            &&
install -v -m700 -d /var/spool/mqueue
[Note]

Note

See the source tree sendmail/README file for information on linking optional packages into the build. Use the example below, which adds support for SASL, StartTLS (OpenSSL) and OpenLDAP, as a starting point. Of course, modify it to suit your particular needs.

cat >> devtools/Site/site.config.m4 << "EOF"
APPENDDEF(`confENVDEF',`-DSTARTTLS -DSASL -DLDAPMAP -DHASFLOCK')
APPENDDEF(`confLIBS', `-lssl -lcrypto -lsasl2 -lldap -llber')
APPENDDEF(`confINCDIRS', `-I/usr/include/sasl')
EOF

Install sendmail with the following commands:

cat >> devtools/Site/site.config.m4 << "EOF"
define(`confMANGRP',`root')
define(`confMANOWN',`root')
define(`confSBINGRP',`root')
define(`confUBINGRP',`root')
define(`confUBINOWN',`root')
EOF

sed -i 's|/usr/man/man|/usr/share/man/man|' \
    devtools/OS/Linux           &&

cd sendmail                     &&
sh Build                        &&
cd ../cf/cf                     &&
cp generic-linux.mc sendmail.mc &&
sh Build sendmail.cf

This package does not come with a test suite.

Now, as the root user:

install -v -d -m755 /etc/mail &&
sh Build install-cf &&

cd ../..            &&
sh Build install    &&

install -v -m644 cf/cf/{submit,sendmail}.mc /etc/mail &&
cp -v -R cf/* /etc/mail                               &&

install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/sendmail-8.18.1/{cf,sendmail} &&

install -v -m644 CACerts FAQ KNOWNBUGS LICENSE PGPKEYS README RELEASE_NOTES \
        /usr/share/doc/sendmail-8.18.1 &&

install -v -m644 sendmail/{README,SECURITY,TRACEFLAGS,TUNING} \
        /usr/share/doc/sendmail-8.18.1/sendmail &&

install -v -m644 cf/README /usr/share/doc/sendmail-8.18.1/cf &&

for manpage in sendmail editmap mailstats makemap praliases smrsh
do
    install -v -m644 $manpage/$manpage.8 /usr/share/man/man8
done &&

install -v -m644 sendmail/aliases.5    /usr/share/man/man5 &&
install -v -m644 sendmail/mailq.1      /usr/share/man/man1 &&
install -v -m644 sendmail/newaliases.1 /usr/share/man/man1 &&
install -v -m644 vacation/vacation.1   /usr/share/man/man1

Install the sendmail Installation and Operations Guide with the following commands:

[Note]

Note

Remove op.pdf from the make and install commands below if you don't have Ghostscript installed.

cd doc/op                                       &&
sed -i 's/groff/GROFF_NO_SGR=1 groff/' Makefile &&
make op.txt op.pdf

Now, as the root user:

install -v -d -m755 /usr/share/doc/sendmail-8.18.1 &&
install -v -m644 op.ps op.txt op.pdf /usr/share/doc/sendmail-8.18.1 &&
cd ../..

Command Explanations

cat > devtools/Site/site.config.m4 << "EOF": This creates a configuration file changing some of the default settings.

sed ... devtools/OS/Linux: The site.config.m4 does not honor a change to the man directory, so fix it in the OS definitions.

sh Build; sh Build sendmail.cf; sh Build install-cf; sh Build install: sendmail uses an m4 based build script to create the various Makefiles. These commands build and install the package.

for manpage in...;do...;done; install ...: The man pages are installed already formatted and man displays them somewhat garbled. These commands replace the formatted pages with pages man can display properly.

Configuring sendmail

Config Files

/etc/mail/*

Configuration Information

[Note]

Note

Ensure you have a fully qualified domain name defined in /etc/hosts for your system before proceeding.

Create the /etc/mail/local-host-names and /etc/mail/aliases files using the following commands as the root user:

echo $(hostname) > /etc/mail/local-host-names
cat > /etc/mail/aliases << "EOF"
postmaster: root
MAILER-DAEMON: root

EOF
# Does not work if there is no database backend compiled in:
#newaliases

sendmail's primary configuration file, /etc/mail/sendmail.cf, is complex and not meant to be directly edited. The recommended method for changing it is to modify /etc/mail/sendmail.mc and various m4 files, then run the m4 macro processor from within /etc/mail as follows:

cd /etc/mail &&
m4 m4/cf.m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf

A full explanation of the files to modify, and the available parameters can be found in /etc/mail/README.

Boot Script

To automate the running of sendmail at startup, install the /etc/rc.d/init.d/sendmail init script included in the blfs-bootscripts-20240209 package:

make install-sendmail
[Note]

Note

The -qNm option to sendmail, where N is number of minutes, controls how often sendmail will process the mail queue. A default of 5 minutes is used in the init script. Individual workstation users may want to set this as low as 1 minute, large installations handling more mail may want to set it higher.

Contents

Installed Programs: editmap, mailstats, makemap, praliases, sendmail, smrsh, and vacation; symlinks to /usr/sbin/sendmail: hoststat, mailq, newaliases, and purgestat
Installed Libraries: None
Installed Directories: /etc/mail, /usr/share/doc/sendmail-8.18.1, and /var/spool/clientmqueue

Short Descriptions

editmap

queries and edits sendmail map files

hoststat

prints sendmail's persistent host status

mailstats

displays sendmail statistics

mailq

prints a summary of outbound mail messages waiting for delivery

makemap

creates sendmail map files

newaliases

rebuilds /etc/mail/aliases.db from the contents of /etc/mail/aliases

praliases

displays current sendmail aliases

purgestat

causes sendmail to clear (purge) all its host-status information

sendmail

is the sendmail mail transport agent

smrsh

is a restricted shell for sendmail

vacation

is an email auto responder