1.\" Copyright (c) 1988, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)sendmail.8 8.3 (Berkeley) 08/20/93 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt SENDMAIL 8 10.Os BSD 4 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm sendmail 13.Nd send mail over the internet 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Nm sendmail 16.Op Ar flags 17.Op Ar address ... 18.Nm newaliases 19.Nm mailq 20.Op Fl v 21.Sh DESCRIPTION 22.Nm Sendmail 23sends a message to one or more 24.Em recipients , 25routing the message over whatever networks 26are necessary. 27.Nm Sendmail 28does internetwork forwarding as necessary 29to deliver the message to the correct place. 30.Pp 31.Nm Sendmail 32is not intended as a user interface routine; 33other programs provide user-friendly 34front ends; 35.Nm sendmail 36is used only to deliver pre-formatted messages. 37.Pp 38With no flags, 39.Nm sendmail 40reads its standard input 41up to an end-of-file 42or a line consisting only of a single dot 43and sends a copy of the message found there 44to all of the addresses listed. 45It determines the network(s) to use 46based on the syntax and contents of the addresses. 47.Pp 48Local addresses are looked up in a file 49and aliased appropriately. 50Aliasing can be prevented by preceding the address 51with a backslash. 52Normally the sender is not included in any alias 53expansions, e.g., 54if `john' sends to `group', 55and `group' includes `john' in the expansion, 56then the letter will not be delivered to `john'. 57.Ss Parameters 58.Bl -tag -width Fl 59.It Fl B Ns Ar type 60Set the body type to 61.Ar type . 62Current legal values 63.Li 7BIT 64or 65.Li 8BITMIME . 66.It Fl ba 67Go into 68.Tn ARPANET 69mode. 70All input lines must end with a CR-LF, 71and all messages will be generated with a CR-LF at the end. 72Also, 73the ``From:'' and ``Sender:'' 74fields are examined for the name of the sender. 75.It Fl bd 76Run as a daemon. This requires Berkeley 77.Tn IPC . 78.Nm Sendmail 79will fork and run in background 80listening on socket 25 for incoming 81.Tn SMTP 82connections. 83This is normally run from 84.Pa /etc/rc . 85.It Fl bi 86Initialize the alias database. 87.It Fl bm 88Deliver mail in the usual way (default). 89.It Fl bp 90Print a listing of the queue. 91.It Fl bs 92Use the 93.Tn SMTP 94protocol as described in 95.Tn RFC821 96on standard input and output. 97This flag implies all the operations of the 98.Fl ba 99flag that are compatible with 100.Tn SMTP . 101.It Fl bt 102Run in address test mode. 103This mode reads addresses and shows the steps in parsing; 104it is used for debugging configuration tables. 105.It Fl bv 106Verify names only \- do not try to collect or deliver a message. 107Verify mode is normally used for validating 108users or mailing lists. 109.It Fl C Ns Ar file 110Use alternate configuration file. 111.Nm Sendmail 112refuses to run as root if an alternate configuration file is specified. 113.It Fl d Ns Ar X 114Set debugging value to 115.Ar X . 116.It Fl F Ns Ar fullname 117Set the full name of the sender. 118.It Fl f Ns Ar name 119Sets the name of the ``from'' person 120(i.e., the sender of the mail). 121.Fl f 122can only be used 123by ``trusted'' users 124(normally 125.Em root , 126.Em daemon , 127and 128.Em network ) 129or if the person you are trying to become 130is the same as the person you are. 131.It Fl h Ns Ar N 132Set the hop count to 133.Ar N . 134The hop count is incremented every time the mail is 135processed. 136When it reaches a limit, 137the mail is returned with an error message, 138the victim of an aliasing loop. 139If not specified, 140``Received:'' lines in the message are counted. 141.It Fl n 142Don't do aliasing. 143.It Fl o Ns Ar x Em value 144Set option 145.Ar x 146to the specified 147.Em value . 148Options are described below. 149.It Fl p Ns Ar protocol 150Set the name of the protocol used to receive the message. 151This can be a simple protocol name such as ``UUCP'' 152or a protocol and hostname, such as ``UUCP:ucbvax''. 153.It Fl q Ns Bq Ar time 154Processed saved messages in the queue at given intervals. 155If 156.Ar time 157is omitted, 158process the queue once. 159.Xr Time 160is given as a tagged number, 161with 162.Ql s 163being seconds, 164.Ql m 165being minutes, 166.Ql h 167being hours, 168.Ql d 169being days, 170and 171.Ql w 172being weeks. 173For example, 174.Ql \-q1h30m 175or 176.Ql \-q90m 177would both set the timeout to one hour thirty minutes. 178If 179.Ar time 180is specified, 181.Nm sendmail 182will run in background. 183This option can be used safely with 184.Fl bd . 185.It Fl r Ns Ar name 186An alternate and obsolete form of the 187.Fl f 188flag. 189.It Fl t 190Read message for recipients. 191To:, Cc:, and Bcc: lines will be scanned for recipient addresses. 192The Bcc: line will be deleted before transmission. 193Any addresses in the argument list will be suppressed, 194that is, 195they will 196.Em not 197receive copies even if listed in the message header. 198.It Fl v 199Go into verbose mode. 200Alias expansions will be announced, etc. 201.It Fl X Ar logfile 202Log all traffic in and out of mailers in the indicated log file. 203This should only be used as a last resort 204for debugging mailer bugs. 205It will log a lot of data very quickly. 206.El 207.Ss Options 208There are also a number of processing options that may be set. 209Normally these will only be used by a system administrator. 210Options may be set either on the command line 211using the 212.Fl o 213flag 214or in the configuration file. 215This is a partial list; 216for a complete list (and details), consult the 217.%T "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide" . 218The options are: 219.Bl -tag -width Fl 220.It Li A Ns Ar file 221Use alternate alias file. 222.It Li b Ns Ar nblocks 223The minimum number of free blocks needed on the spool filesystem. 224.It Li c 225On mailers that are considered ``expensive'' to connect to, 226don't initiate immediate connection. 227This requires queueing. 228.It Li C Ar N 229Checkpoint the queue file after every 230.Ar N 231successful deliveries (default 10). 232This avoids excessive duplicate deliveries 233when sending to long mailing lists 234interrupted by system crashes. 235.It Li d Ns Ar x 236Set the delivery mode to 237.Ar x . 238Delivery modes are 239.Ql i 240for interactive (synchronous) delivery, 241.Ql b 242for background (asynchronous) delivery, 243and 244.Ql q 245for queue only \- i.e., 246actual delivery is done the next time the queue is run. 247.It Li D 248Try to automatically rebuild the alias database 249if necessary. 250.It Li e Ns Ar x 251Set error processing to mode 252.Ar x . 253Valid modes are 254.Ql m 255to mail back the error message, 256.Ql w 257to ``write'' back the error message 258(or mail it back if the sender is not logged in), 259.Ql p 260to print the errors on the terminal 261(default), 262.Ql q 263to throw away error messages 264(only exit status is returned), 265and 266.Ql e 267to do special processing for the BerkNet. 268If the text of the message is not mailed back 269by 270modes 271.Ql m 272or 273.Ql w 274and if the sender is local to this machine, 275a copy of the message is appended to the file 276.Pa dead.letter 277in the sender's home directory. 278.It Li f 279Save 280.Tn UNIX Ns \-style 281From lines at the front of messages. 282.It Li G 283Match local mail names against the GECOS portion of the password file. 284.It Li g Ar N 285The default group id to use when calling mailers. 286.It Li H Ns Ar file 287The 288.Tn SMTP 289help file. 290.It Li h Ar N 291The maximum number of times a message is allowed to ``hop'' 292before we decide it is in a loop. 293.It Li i 294Do not take dots on a line by themselves 295as a message terminator. 296.It Li j 297Send error messages in MIME format. 298.It Li K Ns Ar timeout 299Set connection cache timeout. 300.It Li k Ns Ar N 301Set connection cache size. 302.It Li L Ns Ar n 303The log level. 304.It Li l 305Pay attention to the Errors-To: header. 306.It Li m 307Send to ``me'' (the sender) also if I am in an alias expansion. 308.It Li n 309Validate the right hand side of aliases during a 310.Xr newaliases 1 311command. 312.It Li o 313If set, this message may have 314old style headers. 315If not set, 316this message is guaranteed to have new style headers 317(i.e., commas instead of spaces between addresses). 318If set, an adaptive algorithm is used that will correctly 319determine the header format in most cases. 320.It Li Q Ns Ar queuedir 321Select the directory in which to queue messages. 322.It Li S Ns Ar file 323Save statistics in the named file. 324.It Li s 325Always instantiate the queue file, 326even under circumstances where it is not strictly necessary. 327This provides safety against system crashes during delivery. 328.It Li T Ns Ar time 329Set the timeout on undelivered messages in the queue to the specified time. 330After delivery has failed 331(e.g., because of a host being down) 332for this amount of time, 333failed messages will be returned to the sender. 334The default is three days. 335.It Li t Ns Ar stz , Ar dtz 336Set the name of the time zone. 337.It Li U Ns Ar userdatabase 338If set, a user database is consulted to get forwarding information. 339You can consider this an adjunct to the aliasing mechanism, 340except that the database is intended to be distributed; 341aliases are local to a particular host. 342This may not be available if your sendmail does not have the 343.Dv USERDB 344option compiled in. 345.It Li u Ns Ar N 346Set the default user id for mailers. 347.It Li Y 348Fork each job during queue runs. 349May be convenient on memory-poor machines. 350.It Li 7 351Strip incoming messages to seven bits. 352.El 353.Pp 354In aliases, 355the first character of a name may be 356a vertical bar to cause interpretation of 357the rest of the name as a command 358to pipe the mail to. 359It may be necessary to quote the name 360to keep 361.Nm sendmail 362from suppressing the blanks from between arguments. 363For example, a common alias is: 364.Pp 365.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact 366msgs: "|/usr/bin/msgs -s" 367.Ed 368.Pp 369Aliases may also have the syntax 370.Dq :include: Ns Ar filename 371to ask 372.Xr sendmail 373to read the named file for a list of recipients. 374For example, an alias such as: 375.Pp 376.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact 377poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list" 378.Ed 379.Pp 380would read 381.Pa /usr/local/lib/poets.list 382for the list of addresses making up the group. 383.Pp 384.Nm Sendmail 385returns an exit status 386describing what it did. 387The codes are defined in 388.Aq Pa sysexits.h : 389.Bl -tag -width EX_UNAVAILABLE -compact -offset indent 390.It Dv EX_OK 391Successful completion on all addresses. 392.It Dv EX_NOUSER 393User name not recognized. 394.It Dv EX_UNAVAILABLE 395Catchall meaning necessary resources 396were not available. 397.It Dv EX_SYNTAX 398Syntax error in address. 399.It Dv EX_SOFTWARE 400Internal software error, 401including bad arguments. 402.It Dv EX_OSERR 403Temporary operating system error, 404such as 405.Dq cannot fork . 406.It Dv EX_NOHOST 407Host name not recognized. 408.It Dv EX_TEMPFAIL 409Message could not be sent immediately, 410but was queued. 411.El 412.Pp 413If invoked as 414.Nm newaliases , 415.Nm sendmail 416will rebuild the alias database. 417If invoked as 418.Nm mailq , 419.Nm sendmail 420will print the contents of the mail queue. 421.Sh FILES 422Except for the file 423.Pa /etc/sendmail.cf 424itself, 425the following pathnames are all specified in 426.Pa /etc/sendmail.cf. 427Thus, 428these values are only approximations. 429.Pp 430.Bl -tag -width /usr/lib/sendmail.fc -compact 431.It Pa /etc/aliases 432raw data for alias names 433.It Pa /etc/aliases.db 434data base of alias names 435.It Pa /etc/sendmail.cf 436configuration file 437.It Pa /etc/sendmail.hf 438help file 439.It Pa /var/log/sendmail.st 440collected statistics 441.It Pa /var/spool/mqueue/* 442temp files 443.It Pa /var/run/sendmail.pid 444The process id of the daemon 445.El 446.Sh SEE ALSO 447.Xr binmail 1 , 448.Xr mail 1 , 449.Xr rmail 1 , 450.Xr syslog 3 , 451.Xr aliases 5 , 452.Xr mailaddr 7 , 453.Xr rc 8 ; 454.Pp 455DARPA 456Internet Request For Comments 457.%T RFC819 , 458.%T RFC821 , 459.%T RFC822 . 460.Rs 461.%T "Sendmail \- An Internetwork Mail Router" 462.%V SMM 463.%N \&No. 9 464.Re 465.Rs 466.%T "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide" 467.%V SMM 468.%N \&No. 8 469.Re 470.Sh HISTORY 471The 472.Nm 473command appeared in 474.Bx 4.2 . 475