sendmail(1M) sendmail(1M)
NAME
sendmail,newaliases,mailq - send mail over the internet
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/sendmail [ flags ] [ address ... ]
newaliases
mailq
DESCRIPTION
sendmail sends a message to one or more people, 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 a
control-D or a line with a single dot and sends a copy of
the letter found there to all of the addresses listed. It
determines the network to use based on the syntax and con-
tents of the addresses.
Local addresses are looked up the local aliases(4) file, or
by using the Yellow Pages name service, 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 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.
-bi Initialize the alias database.
-bm Deliver mail in the usual way (default).
-bp Print a listing of the queue.
-bs Use the SMTP protocol as described in RFC821.
This flag implies all the operations of the -ba
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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 debugging configuration tables.
-bv Verify names only - do not try to collect or
deliver a message. Verify mode is normally used
for validating users or mailing lists.
-bz Create the configuration freeze file.
-Cfile Use alternate configuration file.
-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 the
special users root, daemon, and network, 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 incre-
mented 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.
-Mid Attempt to deliver the queued message with
message-id id.
-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
intervals. 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.
-rname An alternate and obsolete form of the -f flag.
-Rstring Go through the queue of pending mail and attempt
to deliver any message with a recipient contain-
ing the specified string. This is useful for
clearing out mail directed to a machine which
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has been down for awhile.
-t Read message for recipients. To:, Cc:, and Bcc:
lines will be scanned for people to send to.
The Bcc: line will be deleted before transmis-
sion. Any addresses in the argument list will
be suppressed.
-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 CX/UX Sendmail Reference Manual.
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 mes-
sages.
gN The default group id to use when calling
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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.
Sfile Save statistics in the named file.
s Always instantiate the queue file, even under
circumstances where it is not strictly neces-
sary.
Ttime Set the timeout on messages in the queue to the
specified time. After sitting in the queue for
this amount of time, they 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.
If the first character of the user name is a vertical bar,
the rest of the user name is used as the name of a program
to pipe the mail to. It may be necessary to quote the name
of the user to keep sendmail from suppressing the blanks
from between arguments.
sendmail returns an exit status describing what it did. The
codes are defined in <sysexits.h>
EX_OK Successful completion on all addresses.
EX_NOUSER User name not recognized.
EX_UNAVAILABLE Catchall meaning necessary resources
were not available.
EX_SYNTAX Syntax error in address.
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EX_SOFTWARE Internal software error, including bad
arguments.
EX_OSERR Temporary operating system error, such
as "cannot fork".
EX_NOHOST Host name not recognized.
EX_TEMPFAIL Message could not be sent immediately,
but was queued.
EX_NOPERM On CX/SX systems, user is operating at a
security label other than the label
allowed for outgoing mail.
If invoked as newaliases, sendmail will rebuild the alias
database. If invoked as mailq, sendmail will print the con-
tents of the mail queue.
SECURITY FEATURES
On systems running CX/SX, most options to sendmail are only
allowed to the superuser. Exceptions are -e, -i, -bv, -m,
and -v, which are allowed to all users.
On systems running CX/SX configured to B1 security, local
mail will be labelled with the sender's current operating
security label. Mail will be sent to remote systems only at
the security label of uucp, as defined with UucpSetup.
Incoming mail will be labelled based on the default group
id, as defined by the -og option. If a default group id is
not defined, incoming mail will be at system level.
On systems running B1 CX/SX and multilevel secure network-
ing, mail that is sent/received using TCP/IP will be
labelled based on the default group id. The default group
id should be defined and have an associated label that is
within the security clearance of the network interface.
The use of sendmail is discouraged on systems running CX/SX,
because the authentication of the sender is weak.
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/bin/mail to deliver local mail
/usr/bin/uux to deliver uucp mail
/var/spool/mqueue/* temp files
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SEE ALSO
mail(1), mailx(1), rmail(1), aliases(4), mailaddr(5),
DARPA Internet Request For Comments RFC819, RFC821, RFC822,
RFC1123;
CX/UX Sendmail Reference Manual.
NOTES
The default version of sendmail (/usr/lib/sendmail) does not
support the DNS's MX (Mail eXchanger) resource records.
Support of these is required by RFC 1123 "Requirements for
Internet Hosts - Application and Support". An alternate
version of the daemon (/usr/lib/sendmail.mx) is provided for
sites requiring support of MX records.
sendmail converts blanks in addresses to dots. This is
incorrect according to the old ARPANET mail protocol RFC733
(NIC 41952), but is consistent with the new protocols
(RFC822).
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