1.\" Copyright (c) 1988, 1991 The Regents of the University of California. 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)sendmail.8 6.12 (Berkeley) 10/03/91 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.Pp 58Flags are: 59.Bl -tag -width Fl 60.It Fl ba 61Go into 62.Tn ARPANET 63mode. 64All input lines must end with a CR-LF, 65and all messages will be generated with a CR-LF at the end. 66Also, 67the ``From:'' and ``Sender:'' 68fields are examined for the name of the sender. 69.It Fl bd 70Run as a daemon. This requires Berkeley 71.Tn IPC . 72.Nm Sendmail 73will fork and run in background 74listening on socket 25 for incoming 75.Tn SMTP 76connections. 77This is normally run from 78.Pa /etc/rc . 79.It Fl bi 80Initialize the alias database. 81.It Fl bm 82Deliver mail in the usual way (default). 83.It Fl bp 84Print a listing of the queue. 85.It Fl bs 86Use the 87.Tn SMTP 88protocol as described in 89.Tn RFC821 90on standard input and output. 91This flag implies all the operations of the 92.Fl ba 93flag that are compatible with 94.Tn SMTP . 95.It Fl bt 96Run in address test mode. 97This mode reads addresses and shows the steps in parsing; 98it is used for debugging configuration tables. 99.It Fl bv 100Verify names only \- do not try to collect or deliver a message. 101Verify mode is normally used for validating 102users or mailing lists. 103.It Fl bz 104Create the configuration freeze file. 105.It Fl C Ns Ar file 106Use alternate configuration file. 107.Nm Sendmail 108refuses to run as root if an alternate configuration file is specified. 109The frozen configuration file is bypassed. 110.It Fl d Ns Ar X 111Set debugging value to 112.Ar X . 113.It Fl F Ns Ar fullname 114Set the full name of the sender. 115.It Fl f Ns Ar name 116Sets the name of the ``from'' person 117(i.e., the sender of the mail). 118.Fl f 119can only be used 120by ``trusted'' users 121(normally 122.Em root , 123.Em daemon , 124and 125.Em network ) 126or if the person you are trying to become 127is the same as the person you are. 128.It Fl h Ns Ar N 129Set the hop count to 130.Ar N . 131The hop count is incremented every time the mail is 132processed. 133When it reaches a limit, 134the mail is returned with an error message, 135the victim of an aliasing loop. 136If not specified, 137``Received:'' lines in the message are counted. 138.It Fl n 139Don't do aliasing. 140.It Fl o Ns Ar x Em value 141Set option 142.Ar x 143to the specified 144.Em value . 145Options are described below. 146.It Fl q Ns Bq Ar time 147Processed saved messages in the queue at given intervals. 148If 149.Ar time 150is omitted, 151process the queue once. 152.Xr Time 153is given as a tagged number, 154with 155.Ql s 156being seconds, 157.Ql m 158being minutes, 159.Ql h 160being hours, 161.Ql d 162being days, 163and 164.Ql w 165being weeks. 166For example, 167.Ql \-q1h30m 168or 169.Ql \-q90m 170would both set the timeout to one hour thirty minutes. 171If 172.Ar time 173is specified, 174.Nm sendmail 175will run in background. 176This option can be used safely with 177.Fl bd . 178.It Fl r Ns Ar name 179An alternate and obsolete form of the 180.Fl f 181flag. 182.It Fl t 183Read message for recipients. 184To:, Cc:, and Bcc: lines will be scanned for recipient addresses. 185The Bcc: line will be deleted before transmission. 186Any addresses in the argument list will be suppressed, 187that is, 188they will 189.Em not 190receive copies even if listed in the message header. 191.It Fl v 192Go into verbose mode. 193Alias expansions will be announced, etc. 194.El 195.Pp 196There are also a number of processing options that may be set. 197Normally these will only be used by a system administrator. 198Options may be set either on the command line 199using the 200.Fl o 201flag 202or in the configuration file. 203These are described in detail in the 204.%T "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide" . 205The options are: 206.Bl -tag -width Fl 207.It Li A Ns Ar file 208Use alternate alias file. 209.It Li c 210On mailers that are considered ``expensive'' to connect to, 211don't initiate immediate connection. 212This requires queueing. 213.It Li C Ar N 214Checkpoint the queue file after every 215.Ar N 216successful deliveries (default 10). 217This avoids excessive duplicate deliveries 218when sending to long mailing lists 219interrupted by system crashes. 220.It Li d Ns Ar x 221Set the delivery mode to 222.Ar x . 223Delivery modes are 224.Ql i 225for interactive (synchronous) delivery, 226.Ql b 227for background (asynchronous) delivery, 228and 229.Ql q 230for queue only \- i.e., 231actual delivery is done the next time the queue is run. 232.It Li D 233Try to automatically rebuild the alias database 234if necessary. 235.It Li e Ns Ar x 236Set error processing to mode 237.Ar x . 238Valid modes are 239.Ql m 240to mail back the error message, 241.Ql w 242to ``write'' back the error message 243(or mail it back if the sender is not logged in), 244.Ql p 245to print the errors on the terminal 246(default), 247.Ql q 248to throw away error messages 249(only exit status is returned), 250and 251.Ql e 252to do special processing for the BerkNet. 253If the text of the message is not mailed back 254by 255modes 256.Ql m 257or 258.Ql w 259and if the sender is local to this machine, 260a copy of the message is appended to the file 261.Pa dead.letter 262in the sender's home directory. 263.It Li F Ns Ar mode 264The mode to use when creating temporary files. 265.It Li f 266Save 267.Tn UNIX Ns \-style 268From lines at the front of messages. 269.It Li g Ar N 270The default group id to use when calling mailers. 271.It Li H Ns Ar file 272The 273.Tn SMTP 274help file. 275.It Li h Ar N 276The maximum number of times a message is allowed to ``hop'' 277before we decide it is in a loop. 278.It Li i 279Do not take dots on a line by themselves 280as a message terminator. 281.It Li L Ns Ar n 282The log level. 283.It Li m 284Send to ``me'' (the sender) also if I am in an alias expansion. 285.It Li o 286If set, this message may have 287old style headers. 288If not set, 289this message is guaranteed to have new style headers 290(i.e., commas instead of spaces between addresses). 291If set, an adaptive algorithm is used that will correctly 292determine the header format in most cases. 293.It Li Q Ns Ar queuedir 294Select the directory in which to queue messages. 295.It Li r Ns Ar timeout 296The timeout on reads; 297if none is set, 298.Nm sendmail 299will wait forever for a mailer. 300This option violates the word (if not the intent) of the 301.Tn SMTP 302specification, 303show the timeout should probably be fairly large. 304.It Li S Ns Ar file 305Save statistics in the named file. 306.It Li s 307Always instantiate the queue file, 308even under circumstances where it is not strictly necessary. 309This provides safety against system crashes during delivery. 310.It Li T Ns Ar time 311Set the timeout on undelivered messages in the queue to the specified time. 312After delivery has failed 313(e.g., because of a host being down) 314for this amount of time, 315failed messages will be returned to the sender. 316The default is three days. 317.It Li t Ns Ar stz , Ar dtz 318Set the name of the time zone. 319.It Li U Ns Ar userdatabase 320If set, a user database is consulted to get forwarding information. 321You can consider this an adjunct to the aliasing mechanism, 322except that the database is intended to be distributed; 323aliases are local to a particular host. 324This may not be available if your sendmail does not have the 325.Dv USERDB 326option compiled in. 327.It Li u Ns Ar N 328Set the default user id for mailers. 329.It Li w 330If set, name server lookups will us a querytype of ANY 331to find types 332.Dv CNAME , A , 333and 334.Dv MX , 335and will cause all existing records to be cached by our local server. 336If you are certain that there are no wildcard MX records in the local domain 337or its parents that are searched, you can 338set this option. 339If the option is not set, 340name server lookups will use a querytype of 341.Dv CNAME 342only; 343otherwise, it would cause all fully-qualified names 344to match as names in the local domain. 345.El 346.Pp 347In aliases, 348the first character of a name may be 349a vertical bar to cause interpretation of 350the rest of the name as a command 351to pipe the mail to. 352It may be necessary to quote the name 353to keep 354.Nm sendmail 355from suppressing the blanks from between arguments. 356For example, a common alias is: 357.Pp 358.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact 359msgs: "|/usr/bin/msgs -s" 360.Ed 361.Pp 362Aliases may also have the syntax 363.Dq :include: Ns Ar filename 364to ask 365.Xr sendmail 366to read the named file for a list of recipients. 367For example, an alias such as: 368.Pp 369.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact 370poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list" 371.Ed 372.Pp 373would read 374.Pa /usr/local/lib/poets.list 375for the list of addresses making up the group. 376.Pp 377.Nm Sendmail 378returns an exit status 379describing what it did. 380The codes are defined in 381.Aq Pa sysexits.h : 382.Bl -tag -width EX_UNAVAILABLE -compact -offset indent 383.It Dv EX_OK 384Successful completion on all addresses. 385.It Dv EX_NOUSER 386User name not recognized. 387.It Dv EX_UNAVAILABLE 388Catchall meaning necessary resources 389were not available. 390.It Dv EX_SYNTAX 391Syntax error in address. 392.It Dv EX_SOFTWARE 393Internal software error, 394including bad arguments. 395.It Dv EX_OSERR 396Temporary operating system error, 397such as 398.Dq cannot fork . 399.It Dv EX_NOHOST 400Host name not recognized. 401.It Dv EX_TEMPFAIL 402Message could not be sent immediately, 403but was queued. 404.El 405.Pp 406If invoked as 407.Nm newaliases , 408.Nm sendmail 409will rebuild the alias database. 410If invoked as 411.Nm mailq , 412.Nm sendmail 413will print the contents of the mail queue. 414.Sh FILES 415Except for the file 416.Pa /etc/sendmail.cf 417itself, 418the following pathnames are all specified in 419.Pa /etc/sendmail.cf. 420Thus, 421these values are only approximations. 422.Pp 423.Bl -tag -width /usr/lib/sendmail.fc -compact 424.It Pa /etc/aliases 425raw data for alias names 426.It Pa /etc/aliases.pag 427.It Pa /etc/aliases.dir 428data base of alias names 429.It Pa /etc/sendmail.cf 430configuration file 431.It Pa /etc/sendmail.fc 432frozen configuration 433.It Pa /etc/sendmail.hf 434help file 435.It Pa /var/log/sendmail.st 436collected statistics 437.It Pa /var/spool/mqueue/* 438temp files 439.El 440.Sh SEE ALSO 441.Xr binmail 1 , 442.Xr mail 1 , 443.Xr rmail 1 , 444.Xr syslog 3 , 445.Xr aliases 5 , 446.Xr mailaddr 7 , 447.Xr rc 8 ; 448.Pp 449DARPA 450Internet Request For Comments 451.%T RFC819 , 452.%T RFC821 , 453.%T RFC822 . 454.Rs 455.%T "Sendmail \- An Internetwork Mail Router" 456.%V SMM 457.%N \&No. 9 458.Re 459.Rs 460.%T "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide" 461.%V SMM 462.%N \&No. 8 463.Re 464.Sh HISTORY 465The 466.Nm 467command appeared in 468.Bx 4.2 . 469