1 .\" Copyright (c) 1998-2002 Sendmail, Inc. and its suppliers.
2 .\" All rights reserved.
3 .\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1997 Eric P. Allman. All rights reserved.
4 .\" Copyright (c) 1988, 1991, 1993
5 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
7 .\" By using this file, you agree to the terms and conditions set
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12 .\" $Id: sendmail.8,v 8.51.2.1 2003/05/20 16:38:15 gshapiro Exp $
14 .TH SENDMAIL 8 "$Date: 2003/05/20 16:38:15 $"
17 \- an electronic mail transport agent
20 .RI [ flags "] [" "address ..." ]
34 sends a message to one or more
36 routing the message over whatever networks
39 does internetwork forwarding as necessary
40 to deliver the message to the correct place.
43 is not intended as a user interface routine;
44 other programs provide user-friendly
47 is used only to deliver pre-formatted messages.
51 reads its standard input
53 or a line consisting only of a single dot
54 and sends a copy of the message found there
55 to all of the addresses listed.
56 It determines the network(s) to use
57 based on the syntax and contents of the addresses.
59 Local addresses are looked up in a file
60 and aliased appropriately.
61 Aliasing can be prevented by preceding the address
63 Beginning with 8.10, the sender is included in any alias
65 if `john' sends to `group',
66 and `group' includes `john' in the expansion,
67 then the letter will also be delivered to `john'.
71 Use submit.cf even if the operation mode does not indicate
72 an initial mail submission.
75 Use sendmail.cf even if the operation mode indicates
76 an initial mail submission.
81 Current legal values are
89 mode. All input lines must end with a CR-LF,
90 and all messages will be generated with a CR-LF at the end.
92 the ``From:'' and ``Sender:''
93 fields are examined for the name of the sender.
98 will fork and run in background
99 listening on socket 25 for incoming
102 This is normally run from
108 except runs in foreground.
111 Print the persistent host status database.
114 Purge expired entries from the persistent host status database.
117 Initialize the alias database.
120 Deliver mail in the usual way (default).
123 Print a listing of the queue(s).
126 Print number of entries in the queue(s);
127 only available with shared memory support.
132 protocol as described in
134 on standard input and output.
135 This flag implies all the operations of the
137 flag that are compatible with
141 Run in address test mode.
142 This mode reads addresses and shows the steps in parsing;
143 it is used for debugging configuration tables.
146 Verify names only \- do not try to collect or deliver a message.
147 Verify mode is normally used for validating
148 users or mailing lists.
151 Use alternate configuration file.
153 refuses to run as root if an alternate configuration file is specified.
156 Set debugging value to
161 Set the full name of the sender.
164 Sets the name of the ``from'' person
165 (i.e., the envelope sender of the mail).
166 This address may also be used in the From: header
167 if that header is missing during initial submission.
168 The envelope sender address is used as the recipient
169 for delivery status notifications
170 and may also appear in a Return-Path: header.
175 .IR root ", " daemon ,
178 or if the person you are trying to become
179 is the same as the person you are.
181 an X-Authentication-Warning header
182 will be added to the message.
185 Relay (gateway) submission of a message,
194 The hop count is incremented every time the mail is
196 When it reaches a limit,
197 the mail is returned with an error message,
198 the victim of an aliasing loop.
200 ``Received:'' lines in the message are counted.
203 Ignore dots alone on lines by themselves in incoming messages.
204 This should be set if you are reading data from a file.
207 Set the identifier used in syslog messages to the supplied
211 Set delivery status notification conditions to
216 or a comma separated list of the values
218 to be notified if delivery failed,
220 to be notified if delivery is delayed, and
222 to be notified when the message is successfully delivered.
227 \fB\-O\fP \fIoption\fR=\fIvalue\fR
232 This form uses long names. See below for more details.
239 This form uses single character names only.
240 The short names are not described in this manual page;
242 .I "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide"
246 Set the name of the protocol used to receive the message.
247 This can be a simple protocol name such as ``UUCP''
248 or a protocol and hostname, such as ``UUCP:ucbvax''.
250 \fB\-q\fR[\fItime\fR]
251 Process saved messages in the queue at given intervals.
254 is omitted, process the queue once.
256 is given as a tagged number,
261 being minutes (default),
273 would both set the timeout to one hour thirty minutes.
276 will run in the background.
277 This option can be used safely with
280 \fB\-qp\fR[\fItime\fR]
281 Similar to \fB\-q\fItime\fR,
282 except that instead of periodically forking a child to process the queue,
283 sendmail forks a single persistent child for each queue
284 that alternates between processing the queue and sleeping.
285 The sleep time is given as the argument; it defaults to 1 second.
286 The process will always sleep at least 5 seconds if the queue was
287 empty in the previous queue run.
290 Process saved messages in the queue once and do not fork(),
291 but run in the foreground.
294 Process jobs in queue group called
298 \fB\-q\fR[\fI!\fR]I\fIsubstr\fR
299 Limit processed jobs to those containing
301 as a substring of the queue id or not when
305 \fB\-q\fR[\fI!\fR]R\fIsubstr\fR
306 Limit processed jobs to those containing
308 as a substring of one of the recipients or not when
312 \fB\-q\fR[\fI!\fR]S\fIsubstr\fR
313 Limit processed jobs to those containing
315 as a substring of the sender or not when
320 Set the amount of the message to be returned
321 if the message bounces.
326 to return the entire message or
328 to return only the headers.
329 In the latter case also local bounces return only the headers.
332 An alternate and obsolete form of the
337 Read message for recipients.
338 To:, Cc:, and Bcc: lines will be scanned for recipient addresses.
339 The Bcc: line will be deleted before transmission.
342 Set the original envelope id.
343 This is propagated across SMTP to servers that support DSNs
344 and is returned in DSN-compliant error messages.
347 Go into verbose mode.
348 Alias expansions will be announced, etc.
351 Log all traffic in and out of mailers in the indicated log file.
352 This should only be used as a last resort
353 for debugging mailer bugs.
354 It will log a lot of data very quickly.
357 Stop processing command flags and use the rest of the arguments as
360 There are also a number of processing options that may be set.
361 Normally these will only be used by a system administrator.
362 Options may be set either on the command line
365 flag (for short names), the
367 flag (for long names),
368 or in the configuration file.
369 This is a partial list limited to those options that are likely to be useful
371 and only shows the long names;
372 for a complete list (and details), consult the
373 .IR "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide" .
377 Use alternate alias file.
380 On mailers that are considered ``expensive'' to connect to,
381 don't initiate immediate connection.
382 This requires queueing.
384 .RI CheckpointInterval= N
385 Checkpoint the queue file after every
387 successful deliveries (default 10).
388 This avoids excessive duplicate deliveries
389 when sending to long mailing lists
390 interrupted by system crashes.
394 Set the delivery mode to
398 for interactive (synchronous) delivery,
400 for background (asynchronous) delivery,
402 for queue only \- i.e.,
403 actual delivery is done the next time the queue is run, and
405 for deferred \- the same as
407 except that database lookups for maps which have set the \-D option
408 (default for the host map) are avoided.
411 Set error processing to mode
415 to mail back the error message,
418 back the error message
419 (or mail it back if the sender is not logged in),
421 to print the errors on the terminal
424 to throw away error messages
425 (only exit status is returned),
428 to do special processing for the BerkNet.
429 If the text of the message is not mailed back
435 and if the sender is local to this machine,
436 a copy of the message is appended to the file
438 in the sender's home directory.
443 From lines at the front of messages.
446 The maximum number of times a message is allowed to ``hop''
447 before we decide it is in a loop.
450 Do not take dots on a line by themselves
451 as a message terminator.
454 Send error messages in MIME format.
455 If not set, the DSN (Delivery Status Notification) SMTP extension
458 .RI ConnectionCacheTimeout= timeout
459 Set connection cache timeout.
461 .RI ConnectionCacheSize= N
462 Set connection cache size.
468 Don't send to ``me'' (the sender) if I am in an alias expansion.
471 Validate the right hand side of aliases during a
476 If set, this message may have
479 this message is guaranteed to have new style headers
480 (i.e., commas instead of spaces between addresses).
481 If set, an adaptive algorithm is used that will correctly
482 determine the header format in most cases.
484 .RI QueueDirectory= queuedir
485 Select the directory in which to queue messages.
488 Save statistics in the named file.
490 .RI Timeout.queuereturn= time
491 Set the timeout on undelivered messages in the queue to the specified time.
492 After delivery has failed
493 (e.g., because of a host being down)
494 for this amount of time,
495 failed messages will be returned to the sender.
496 The default is five days.
498 .RI UserDatabaseSpec= userdatabase
499 If set, a user database is consulted to get forwarding information.
500 You can consider this an adjunct to the aliasing mechanism,
501 except that the database is intended to be distributed;
502 aliases are local to a particular host.
503 This may not be available if your sendmail does not have the
508 Fork each job during queue runs.
509 May be convenient on memory-poor machines.
512 Strip incoming messages to seven bits.
514 .RI EightBitMode= mode
515 Set the handling of eight bit input to seven bit destinations to
518 (mimefy) will convert to seven-bit MIME format,
520 (pass) will pass it as eight bits (but violates protocols),
523 (strict) will bounce the message.
525 .RI MinQueueAge= timeout
526 Sets how long a job must ferment in the queue between attempts to send it.
528 .RI DefaultCharSet= charset
529 Sets the default character set used to label 8-bit data
530 that is not otherwise labelled.
532 .RI DialDelay= sleeptime
533 If opening a connection fails,
536 seconds and try again.
537 Useful on dial-on-demand sites.
539 .RI NoRecipientAction= action
540 Set the behaviour when there are no recipient headers (To:, Cc: or
541 Bcc:) in the message to
544 leaves the message unchanged,
546 adds a To: header with the envelope recipients,
548 adds an Apparently-To: header with the envelope recipients,
550 adds an empty Bcc: header, and
552 adds a header reading
553 `To: undisclosed-recipients:;'.
555 .RI MaxDaemonChildren= N
556 Sets the maximum number of children that an incoming SMTP daemon
557 will allow to spawn at any time to
560 .RI ConnectionRateThrottle= N
561 Sets the maximum number of connections per second to the SMTP port to
565 the first character of a name may be
566 a vertical bar to cause interpretation of
567 the rest of the name as a command
569 It may be necessary to quote the name
572 from suppressing the blanks from between arguments.
573 For example, a common alias is:
575 msgs: "|/usr/bin/msgs -s"
577 Aliases may also have the syntax
578 .RI ``:include: filename ''
581 to read the named file for a list of recipients.
582 For example, an alias such as:
584 poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list"
587 .I /usr/local/lib/poets.list
588 for the list of addresses making up the group.
591 returns an exit status
592 describing what it did.
593 The codes are defined in
597 Successful completion on all addresses.
600 User name not recognized.
603 Catchall meaning necessary resources
607 Syntax error in address.
610 Internal software error,
611 including bad arguments.
614 Temporary operating system error,
619 Host name not recognized.
622 Message could not be sent immediately,
628 will rebuild the alias database. If invoked as
631 will print the contents of the mail queue.
635 will print the persistent host status database.
639 will purge expired entries from the persistent host status database.
643 will act as a daemon, as if the
645 option were specified.
648 often gets blamed for many problems
649 that are actually the result of other problems,
650 such as overly permissive modes on directories.
653 checks the modes on system directories and files
654 to determine if they can be trusted.
655 Although these checks can be turned off
656 and your system security reduced by setting the
657 .BR DontBlameSendmail
659 the permission problems should be fixed.
660 For more information, see:
662 .I http://www.sendmail.org/tips/DontBlameSendmail.html
665 .I /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
666 itself the following pathnames are all specified in
667 .IR /etc/mail/sendmail.cf .
669 these values are only approximations.
673 raw data for alias names
676 data base of alias names
678 /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
699 Internet Request For Comments
703 .IR "Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide" ,
706 http://www.sendmail.org/
712 .\" $FreeBSD: src/contrib/sendmail/src/sendmail.8,v 1.3.6.7 2003/10/30 22:31:45 gshapiro Exp $