sendmail-8.18.1

Introduction to sendmail

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

[Note]

Note

Development versions of BLFS may not build or run some packages properly if LFS or dependencies have been updated since the most recent stable versions of the books.

Package Information

sendmail Dependencies

Required

OpenLDAP-2.6.7 (client)

Recommended

Optional

ghostscript-10.03.0 (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