.\" Copyright (c) 1988 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
.\" provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
.\" duplicated in all such forms and that any documentation,
.\" advertising materials, and other materials related to such
.\" distribution and use acknowledge that the software was developed
.\" by the University of California, Berkeley. The name of the
.\" University may not be used to endorse or promote products derived
.\" from this software without specific prior written permission.
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
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.\" @(#)sendmail.8 6.3 (Berkeley) 9/20/88
.TH SENDMAIL 8 "September 20, 1988"
sendmail \- send mail over the internet
sends a message to one or more
routing the message over whatever networks
does internetwork forwarding as necessary
to deliver the message to the correct place.
is not intended as a user interface routine;
other programs provide user-friendly
is used only to deliver pre-formatted messages.
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
Normally the sender is not included in any alias
if `john' sends to `group',
and `group' includes `john' in the expansion,
then the letter will not be delivered to `john'.
Go into \s-1ARPANET\s0 mode.
All input lines must end with a CR-LF,
and all messages will be generated with a CR-LF at the end.
the ``From:'' and ``Sender:''
fields are examined for the name of the sender.
Run as a daemon. This requires Berkeley IPC.
will fork and run in background
listening on socket 25 for incoming SMTP connections.
This is normally run from
Initialize the alias database.
Deliver mail in the usual way (default).
Print a listing of the queue.
Use the \s-2SMTP\s0 protocol as described in RFC821
on standard input and output.
This flag implies all the operations of the
flag that are compatible with \s-2SMTP\s0.
Run in address test mode.
This mode reads addresses and shows the steps in parsing;
it is used for debugging configuration tables.
Verify names only \- do not try to collect or deliver a message.
Verify mode is normally used for validating
Create the configuration freeze file.
Use alternate configuration file.
refuses to run as root if an alternate configuration file is specified.
The frozen configuration file is bypassed.
Set the full name of the sender.
Sets the name of the ``from'' person
(i.e., the sender of the mail).
or if the person you are trying to become
is the same as the person you are.
The hop count is incremented every time the mail is
the mail is returned with an error message,
the victim of an aliasing loop.
``Received:'' lines in the message are counted.
Options are described below.
Processed saved messages in the queue at given intervals.
is given as a tagged number,
``\-q1h30m'' or ``\-q90m''
would both set the timeout to one hour thirty minutes.
This option can be used safely with
An alternate and obsolete form of the
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,
receive copies even if listed in the message header.
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 administrator.
Options may be set either on the command line
or in the configuration file.
These are described in detail in the
Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide.
Use alternate alias file.
On mailers that are considered ``expensive'' to connect to,
don't initiate immediate connection.
`i' for interactive (synchronous) delivery,
`b' for background (asynchronous) delivery,
`q' for queue only \- i.e.,
actual delivery is done the next time the queue is run.
Try to automatically rebuild the alias database
Set error processing to mode
`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
`q' to throw away error messages
(only exit status is returned),
to do special processing for the BerkNet.
If the text of the message is not mailed back
and if the sender is local to this machine,
a copy of the message is appended to the file
in the sender's home directory.
The mode to use when creating temporary files.
Save UNIX-style From lines at the front of messages.
The default group id to use when calling mailers.
Do not take dots on a line by themselves
Send to ``me'' (the sender) also if I am in an alias expansion.
If set, this message may have
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.
Select the directory in which to queue messages.
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.
Save statistics in the named file.
Always instantiate the queue file,
even under circumstances where it is not strictly necessary.
This provides safety against system crashes during delivery.
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)
failed messages will be returned to the sender.
The default is three days.
Set the name of the time zone.
Set the default user id for mailers.
the first character of a name may be
a vertical bar to cause interpretation of
the rest of the name as a command
It may be necessary to quote the name
from suppressing the blanks from between arguments.
For example, a common alias is:
msgs: "|/usr/ucb/msgs -s"
Aliases may also have the syntax ``:include:\c
to read the named file for a list of recipients.
For example, an alias such as:
poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list"
.I /usr/local/lib/poets.list
for the list of addresses making up the group.
.ta 3n +\w'EX_UNAVAILABLE'u+3n
.in +\w'EX_UNAVAILABLE'u+6n
EX_OK Successful completion on all addresses.
EX_NOUSER User name not recognized.
EX_UNAVAILABLE Catchall meaning necessary resources
EX_SYNTAX Syntax error in address.
EX_SOFTWARE Internal software error,
EX_OSERR Temporary operating system error,
such as \*(lqcannot fork\*(rq.
EX_NOHOST Host name not recognized.
EX_TEMPFAIL Message could not be sent immediately,
will rebuild the alias database.
will print the contents of the mail queue.
these pathnames are all specified in
these values are only approximations.
/usr/lib/aliases raw data for alias names
/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
binmail(1), mail(1), rmail(1), syslog(3),
aliases(5), mailaddr(7), rc(8);
DARPA Internet Request For Comments
Sendmail \- An Internetwork Mail Router
Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide