xref: /original-bsd/usr.sbin/sendmail/READ_ME (revision c21e1f3a)
1/*-
2 *	@(#)READ_ME	6.7 (Berkeley) 04/16/93
3 */
4
5THIS IS AN ALPHA VERSION OF SENDMAIL.  DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT USING IT
6IN A HEAVY PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT.  We've been running it (in various
7forms) at Berkeley for several months, but our environment is far from
8general.  In particular, it hasn't been heavily tested for non-SMTP
9environments.  The good news is that most of the changes have been
10Internet-related, and that has been tested.
11
12REPORT ANY BUGS to sendmail@CS.Berkeley.EDU.
13
14THIS IS COPYRIGHTED CODE.  BY COMPILING AND RUNNING THIS CODE YOU AGREE
15to upgrade to the production release when it comes out.  You understand
16that we hope this will be by June, but if there are serious problems
17it may be longer than that.
18
19PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THIS AVAILABLE ON PUBLIC FTP.  Since it is still an
20early release, I'd prefer that people get copies directly from Berkeley
21to make certain that they have the most recent version.  This isn't
22an attempt to limit access, just to make certain that everyone is able
23to keep up.
24
25You don't have to install mail.local to run the new version of sendmail.
26Many versions of /bin/mail take a "-d" flag or do local delivery already.
27In particular, mail.local is largely specific to 4.4 BSD, and will not
28be easy to compile elsewhere.  It was written by Keith Bostic, not myself,
29and was not intended for the "general case".
30
31There are several related RFCs that you may wish to read -- they are
32available via anonymous FTP to several sites, including nic.ddn.mil
33(directory rfc), ftp.nisc.sri.com (rfc), nis.nsf.net (RFC),
34nisc.jvnc.net (rfc), venera.isi.edu (in-notes), and wuarchive.wustl.edu
35(info/rfc).  They can also be retrieved via electronic mail by sending
36email to one of:
37
38	mail-server@nisc.sri.com
39		Put "send rfcNNN" in message body
40	nis-info@nis.nsf.net
41		Put "send RFCnnn.TXT-1" in message body
42	sendrfc@jvnc.net
43		Put "RFCnnn" as Subject: line
44
45Important RFCs for electronic mail are:
46
47	RFC821	SMTP protocol
48	RFC822	Mail header format
49	RFC974	MX routing
50	RFC976	UUCP mail format
51	RFC1123	Host requirements (modifies 821, 822, and 974)
52	RFC1413	Identification server
53
54Other standards that may be of interest (but which are less directly
55relevant to sendmail) are:
56
57	RFC987	Mapping between RFC822 and X.400
58	RFC1049	Content-Type header field (extension to RFC822)
59
60Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons the Makefiles are for the new
61Berkeley "make" and will not work on the old, traditional make.  I urge
62you to get this make from Net2 (available on many public FTP archives).
63Failing that, some directories have a "Makefile.dist" that will work on
64older versions of make (but don't have the niceties included).
65
66Similar comments apply to the man pages -- they use the new Berkeley
67-mandoc macros instead of the -man macros.  You can get these from
68Net2 as well.
69
70IF YOU WANT TO RUN THE NEW BERKELEY DB SOFTWARE:  ****  DO NOT  ****
71use the version that was on the Net2 tape -- it has a number of
72nefarious bugs that were bad enough when I got them; you shouldn't have
73to go through the same thing.  Instead, get a new version via public
74FTP from vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU, file pub/db.tar.Z.  This software
75is highly recommended; it gets rid of several stupid limits, it's much
76faster, and the interface is nicer to animals and plants.  You will
77also probably find that you have to add -I/where/you/put/db/include
78to the sendmail makefile to get db.h to work properly.
79
80The structure of this directory tree is:
81
82cf		Source for Berkeley configuration files.  These are
83		different than what you've seen before.  They are a
84		fairly dramatic rewrite, requiring the new sendmail
85		(since they use new features).
86contrib		Some contributed tools to help with sendmail.  THESE
87		ARE NOT SUPPORTED by Berkeley -- contact the original
88		authors if you have problems.
89doc		Documentation.  If you are getting source, read
90		op.me -- it's long, but worth it.
91mail.local	Source for mail.local(8), a local delivery program.
92		Older versions of sendmail called /bin/mail with a
93		special -d flag to mean "really deliver this mail";
94		this is a completely new (and much smaller) program
95		that does absolutely nothing but deliver local mail.
96		THIS IS SPECIFIC TO 4.4BSD, and is not under my
97		control.
98mailstats	Statistics printing program.  It has the pathname of
99		sendmail.st compiled in, so if you've changed that,
100		beware.  This isn't all that useful.
101makemap		A program that creates the keyed maps used by the $( ... $)
102		construct in sendmail.  It is primitive but effective.
103		It takes a very simple input format, so you will probably
104		expect to preprocess must human-convenient formats
105		using sed scripts before this program will like them.
106		But it should be functionally complete.
107praliases	A program to print the DBM version of the aliases file.
108		It hasn't been converted to understand the new Berkeley
109		DB format (which we are using).
110rmail		Source for rmail(8).  This is used as a delivery
111		agent for for UUCP, and could presumably be used by
112		other non-socket oriented mailers.  Older versions of
113		rmail are probably deficient.
114src		Source for the sendmail program itself.
115