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 6.13 (Berkeley) 12/15/92 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 p Ns Ar protocol 147Set the name of the protocol used to receive the message. 148This can be a simple protocol name such as ``UUCP'' 149or a protocol and hostname, such as ``UUCP:ucbvax''. 150.It Fl q Ns Bq Ar time 151Processed saved messages in the queue at given intervals. 152If 153.Ar time 154is omitted, 155process the queue once. 156.Xr Time 157is given as a tagged number, 158with 159.Ql s 160being seconds, 161.Ql m 162being minutes, 163.Ql h 164being hours, 165.Ql d 166being days, 167and 168.Ql w 169being weeks. 170For example, 171.Ql \-q1h30m 172or 173.Ql \-q90m 174would both set the timeout to one hour thirty minutes. 175If 176.Ar time 177is specified, 178.Nm sendmail 179will run in background. 180This option can be used safely with 181.Fl bd . 182.It Fl r Ns Ar name 183An alternate and obsolete form of the 184.Fl f 185flag. 186.It Fl t 187Read message for recipients. 188To:, Cc:, and Bcc: lines will be scanned for recipient addresses. 189The Bcc: line will be deleted before transmission. 190Any addresses in the argument list will be suppressed, 191that is, 192they will 193.Em not 194receive copies even if listed in the message header. 195.It Fl v 196Go into verbose mode. 197Alias expansions will be announced, etc. 198.El 199.Pp 200There are also a number of processing options that may be set. 201Normally these will only be used by a system administrator. 202Options may be set either on the command line 203using the 204.Fl o 205flag 206or in the configuration file. 207These are described in detail in the 208.%T "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide" . 209The options are: 210.Bl -tag -width Fl 211.It Li A Ns Ar file 212Use alternate alias file. 213.It Li c 214On mailers that are considered ``expensive'' to connect to, 215don't initiate immediate connection. 216This requires queueing. 217.It Li C Ar N 218Checkpoint the queue file after every 219.Ar N 220successful deliveries (default 10). 221This avoids excessive duplicate deliveries 222when sending to long mailing lists 223interrupted by system crashes. 224.It Li d Ns Ar x 225Set the delivery mode to 226.Ar x . 227Delivery modes are 228.Ql i 229for interactive (synchronous) delivery, 230.Ql b 231for background (asynchronous) delivery, 232and 233.Ql q 234for queue only \- i.e., 235actual delivery is done the next time the queue is run. 236.It Li D 237Try to automatically rebuild the alias database 238if necessary. 239.It Li e Ns Ar x 240Set error processing to mode 241.Ar x . 242Valid modes are 243.Ql m 244to mail back the error message, 245.Ql w 246to ``write'' back the error message 247(or mail it back if the sender is not logged in), 248.Ql p 249to print the errors on the terminal 250(default), 251.Ql q 252to throw away error messages 253(only exit status is returned), 254and 255.Ql e 256to do special processing for the BerkNet. 257If the text of the message is not mailed back 258by 259modes 260.Ql m 261or 262.Ql w 263and if the sender is local to this machine, 264a copy of the message is appended to the file 265.Pa dead.letter 266in the sender's home directory. 267.It Li F Ns Ar mode 268The mode to use when creating temporary files. 269.It Li f 270Save 271.Tn UNIX Ns \-style 272From lines at the front of messages. 273.It Li g Ar N 274The default group id to use when calling mailers. 275.It Li H Ns Ar file 276The 277.Tn SMTP 278help file. 279.It Li h Ar N 280The maximum number of times a message is allowed to ``hop'' 281before we decide it is in a loop. 282.It Li i 283Do not take dots on a line by themselves 284as a message terminator. 285.It Li L Ns Ar n 286The log level. 287.It Li m 288Send to ``me'' (the sender) also if I am in an alias expansion. 289.It Li o 290If set, this message may have 291old style headers. 292If not set, 293this message is guaranteed to have new style headers 294(i.e., commas instead of spaces between addresses). 295If set, an adaptive algorithm is used that will correctly 296determine the header format in most cases. 297.It Li Q Ns Ar queuedir 298Select the directory in which to queue messages. 299.It Li r Ns Ar timeout 300The timeout on reads; 301if none is set, 302.Nm sendmail 303will wait forever for a mailer. 304This option violates the word (if not the intent) of the 305.Tn SMTP 306specification, 307show the timeout should probably be fairly large. 308.It Li S Ns Ar file 309Save statistics in the named file. 310.It Li s 311Always instantiate the queue file, 312even under circumstances where it is not strictly necessary. 313This provides safety against system crashes during delivery. 314.It Li T Ns Ar time 315Set the timeout on undelivered messages in the queue to the specified time. 316After delivery has failed 317(e.g., because of a host being down) 318for this amount of time, 319failed messages will be returned to the sender. 320The default is three days. 321.It Li t Ns Ar stz , Ar dtz 322Set the name of the time zone. 323.It Li U Ns Ar userdatabase 324If set, a user database is consulted to get forwarding information. 325You can consider this an adjunct to the aliasing mechanism, 326except that the database is intended to be distributed; 327aliases are local to a particular host. 328This may not be available if your sendmail does not have the 329.Dv USERDB 330option compiled in. 331.It Li u Ns Ar N 332Set the default user id for mailers. 333.It Li w 334If set, name server lookups will us a querytype of ANY 335to find types 336.Dv CNAME , A , 337and 338.Dv MX , 339and will cause all existing records to be cached by our local server. 340If you are certain that there are no wildcard MX records in the local domain 341or its parents that are searched, you can 342set this option. 343If the option is not set, 344name server lookups will use a querytype of 345.Dv CNAME 346only; 347otherwise, it would cause all fully-qualified names 348to match as names in the local domain. 349.El 350.Pp 351In aliases, 352the first character of a name may be 353a vertical bar to cause interpretation of 354the rest of the name as a command 355to pipe the mail to. 356It may be necessary to quote the name 357to keep 358.Nm sendmail 359from suppressing the blanks from between arguments. 360For example, a common alias is: 361.Pp 362.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact 363msgs: "|/usr/bin/msgs -s" 364.Ed 365.Pp 366Aliases may also have the syntax 367.Dq :include: Ns Ar filename 368to ask 369.Xr sendmail 370to read the named file for a list of recipients. 371For example, an alias such as: 372.Pp 373.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact 374poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list" 375.Ed 376.Pp 377would read 378.Pa /usr/local/lib/poets.list 379for the list of addresses making up the group. 380.Pp 381.Nm Sendmail 382returns an exit status 383describing what it did. 384The codes are defined in 385.Aq Pa sysexits.h : 386.Bl -tag -width EX_UNAVAILABLE -compact -offset indent 387.It Dv EX_OK 388Successful completion on all addresses. 389.It Dv EX_NOUSER 390User name not recognized. 391.It Dv EX_UNAVAILABLE 392Catchall meaning necessary resources 393were not available. 394.It Dv EX_SYNTAX 395Syntax error in address. 396.It Dv EX_SOFTWARE 397Internal software error, 398including bad arguments. 399.It Dv EX_OSERR 400Temporary operating system error, 401such as 402.Dq cannot fork . 403.It Dv EX_NOHOST 404Host name not recognized. 405.It Dv EX_TEMPFAIL 406Message could not be sent immediately, 407but was queued. 408.El 409.Pp 410If invoked as 411.Nm newaliases , 412.Nm sendmail 413will rebuild the alias database. 414If invoked as 415.Nm mailq , 416.Nm sendmail 417will print the contents of the mail queue. 418.Sh FILES 419Except for the file 420.Pa /etc/sendmail.cf 421itself, 422the following pathnames are all specified in 423.Pa /etc/sendmail.cf. 424Thus, 425these values are only approximations. 426.Pp 427.Bl -tag -width /usr/lib/sendmail.fc -compact 428.It Pa /etc/aliases 429raw data for alias names 430.It Pa /etc/aliases.pag 431.It Pa /etc/aliases.dir 432data base of alias names 433.It Pa /etc/sendmail.cf 434configuration file 435.It Pa /etc/sendmail.fc 436frozen configuration 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.El 444.Sh SEE ALSO 445.Xr binmail 1 , 446.Xr mail 1 , 447.Xr rmail 1 , 448.Xr syslog 3 , 449.Xr aliases 5 , 450.Xr mailaddr 7 , 451.Xr rc 8 ; 452.Pp 453DARPA 454Internet Request For Comments 455.%T RFC819 , 456.%T RFC821 , 457.%T RFC822 . 458.Rs 459.%T "Sendmail \- An Internetwork Mail Router" 460.%V SMM 461.%N \&No. 9 462.Re 463.Rs 464.%T "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide" 465.%V SMM 466.%N \&No. 8 467.Re 468.Sh HISTORY 469The 470.Nm 471command appeared in 472.Bx 4.2 . 473