SENDMAIL(8)                                                        SENDMAIL(8)


NAME
       sendmail - send mail over the internet

SYNOPSIS
       /usr/lib/sendmail [ flags ] [ address ...  ]

       newaliases

       mailq [ -v ]

DESCRIPTION
       Sendmail sends a message to one or more recipients, routing the message
       over whatever networks are necessary.  Sendmail does internetwork  for‐
       warding as necessary to deliver the message to the correct place.

       Sendmail  is  not  intended as a user interface routine; other programs
       provide user-friendly front ends; sendmail is used only to deliver pre-
       formatted messages.

       With  no  flags, sendmail reads its standard input up to an end-of-file
       or a line consisting only of a single dot and sends a copy of the  mes‐
       sage  found  there  to  all of the addresses listed.  It determines the
       network(s) to use based on the syntax and contents of the addresses.

       Local addresses are looked up in  a  file  and  aliased  appropriately.
       Aliasing  can  be  prevented by preceding the address with a backslash.
       Normally the sender is not included in any alias expansions,  e.g.,  if
       ‘john’  sends to ‘group’, and ‘group’ includes ‘john’ in the expansion,
       then the letter will not be delivered to ‘john’.

       Flags are:

       -ba         Go into ARPANET mode.  All input lines must end with a  CR-
                   LF,  and all messages will be generated with a CR-LF at the
                   end.  Also, the ‘‘From:’’ and ‘‘Sender:’’ fields are  exam‐
                   ined for the name of the sender.

       -bd         Run  as  a  daemon.   This requires Berkeley IPC.  Sendmail
                   will fork and run in background listening on socket 25  for
                   incoming  SMTP  connections.   This  is  normally  run from
                   /etc/rc.

       -bi         Initialize the alias database.

       -bm         Deliver mail in the usual way (default).

       -bp         Print a listing of the queue.

       -bs         Use the SMTP protocol as described in  RFC821  on  standard
                   input  and output.  This flag implies all the operations of
                   the -ba flag that are compatible with SMTP.

       -bt         Run in address test mode.  This mode  reads  addresses  and
                   shows  the  steps in parsing; it is used for debugging con‐
                   figuration tables.

       -bv         Verify names only - do not try to collect or deliver a mes‐
                   sage.  Verify mode is normally used for validating users or
                   mailing lists.

       -bz         Create the configuration freeze file.

       -Cfile      Use alternate configuration file.  Sendmail refuses to  run
                   as  root  if  an alternate configuration file is specified.
                   The frozen configuration file is bypassed.

       -dX         Set debugging value to X.

       -Ffullname  Set the full name of the sender.

       -fname      Sets the name of the ‘‘from’’ person (i.e., the  sender  of
                   the  mail).  -f can only be used by ‘‘trusted’’ users (nor‐
                   mally root, daemon, and network) or if the person  you  are
                   trying to become is the same as the person you are.

       -hN         Set the hop count to N.  The hop count is incremented every
                   time the mail is processed.  When it reaches a  limit,  the
                   mail  is  returned  with an error message, the victim of an
                   aliasing loop.  If not specified,  ‘‘Received:’’  lines  in
                   the message are counted.

       -n          Don’t do aliasing.

       -oxvalue    Set option x to the specified value.  Options are described
                   below.

       -q[time]    Processed saved messages in the queue at  given  intervals.
                   If  time is omitted, process the queue once.  Time is given
                   as a tagged number, with ‘s’ being seconds, ‘m’ being  min‐
                   utes, ‘h’ being hours, ‘d’ being days, and ‘w’ being weeks.
                   For example, ‘‘-q1h30m’’ or ‘‘-q90m’’ would  both  set  the
                   timeout  to one hour thirty minutes.  If time is specified,
                   sendmail will run in background.  This option can  be  used
                   safely with -bd.

       -rname      An alternate and obsolete form of the -f flag.

       -t          Read message for recipients.  To:, Cc:, and Bcc: lines will
                   be scanned for recipient addresses.  The Bcc: line will  be
                   deleted before transmission.  Any addresses in the argument
                   list will be suppressed, that is,  they  will  not  receive
                   copies even if listed in the message header.

       -v          Go  into verbose mode.  Alias expansions will be announced,
                   etc.

       There are also a number of processing options that may  be  set.   Nor‐
       mally  these  will only be used by a system administrator.  Options may
       be set either on the command line using the -o flag or in the  configu‐
       ration  file.   These are described in detail in the Sendmail Installa
       tion and Operation Guide.  The options are:

       Afile       Use alternate alias file.

       c           On mailers that are considered ‘‘expensive’’ to connect to,
                   don’t  initiate immediate connection.  This requires queue‐
                   ing.

       dx          Set the delivery mode to x.  Delivery  modes  are  ‘i’  for
                   interactive  (synchronous)  delivery,  ‘b’  for  background
                   (asynchronous) delivery, and ‘q’ for  queue  only  -  i.e.,
                   actual delivery is done the next time the queue is run.

       D           Try  to  automatically rebuild the alias database if neces‐
                   sary.

       ex          Set error processing to mode x.  Valid  modes  are  ‘m’  to
                   mail  back  the  error  message,  ‘w’ to ‘‘write’’ back the
                   error message (or mail it back if the sender is not  logged
                   in), ‘p’ to print the errors on the terminal (default), ‘q’
                   to  throw  away  error  messages  (only  exit   status   is
                   returned),  and  ‘e’  to  do  special  processing  for  the
                   BerkNet.  If the text of the message is not mailed back  by
                   modes  ‘m’  or  ‘w’  and  if  the  sender  is local to this
                   machine, a copy of the message  is  appended  to  the  file
                   ‘‘dead.letter’’ in the sender’s home directory.

       Fmode       The mode to use when creating temporary files.

       f           Save UNIX-style From lines at the front of messages.

       gN          The default group id to use when calling mailers.

       Hfile       The SMTP help file.

       i           Do  not take dots on a line by themselves as a message ter‐
                   minator.

       Ln          The log level.

       m           Send to ‘‘me’’ (the sender) also if I am in an alias expan‐
                   sion.

       o           If  set,  this  message may have old style headers.  If not
                   set, this message is guaranteed to have new  style  headers
                   (i.e.,  commas  instead  of  spaces between addresses).  If
                   set, an adaptive algorithm  is  used  that  will  correctly
                   determine the header format in most cases.

       Qqueuedir   Select the directory in which to queue messages.

       rtimeout    The  timeout  on  reads; if none is set, sendmail will wait
                   forever for a mailer.  This option violates  the  word  (if
                   not the intent) of the SMTP specification, show the timeout
                   should probably be fairly large.

       Sfile       Save statistics in the named file.

       s           Always instantiate the queue file, even under circumstances
                   where  it  is not strictly necessary.  This provides safety
                   against system crashes during delivery.

       Ttime       Set the timeout on undelivered messages in the queue to the
                   specified  time.   After delivery has failed (e.g., because
                   of a host being down) for this amount of time, failed  mes‐
                   sages will be returned to the sender.  The default is three
                   days.

       tstz,dtz    Set the name of the time zone.

       uN          Set the default user id for mailers.

       In aliases, the first character of a name may  be  a  vertical  bar  to
       cause  interpretation  of the rest of the name as a command to pipe the
       mail to.  It may be necessary to quote the name to keep  sendmail  from
       suppressing  the  blanks from between arguments.  For example, a common
       alias is:

            msgs: "|/usr/ucb/msgs -s"

       Aliases may also have the syntax ‘‘:include:filename’’ to ask  sendmail
       to read the named file for a list of recipients.  For example, an alias
       such as:

            poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list"

       would read /usr/local/lib/poets.list for the list of  addresses  making
       up the group.

       Sendmail  returns an exit status describing what it did.  The codes are
       defined in <sysexits.h>
          EX_OK            Successful completion on all addresses.
          EX_NOUSER        User name not recognized.
          EX_UNAVAILABLE   Catchall  meaning  necessary  resources  were   not
                           available.
          EX_SYNTAX        Syntax error in address.
          EX_SOFTWARE      Internal software error, including bad arguments.
          EX_OSERR         Temporary  operating  system error, such as “cannot
                           fork”.
          EX_NOHOST        Host name not recognized.
          EX_TEMPFAIL      Message could not  be  sent  immediately,  but  was
                           queued.

       If invoked as newaliases, sendmail will rebuild the alias database.  If
       invoked as mailq, sendmail will print the contents of the mail queue.

FILES
       Except for /usr/lib/sendmail.cf, these pathnames are all  specified  in
       /usr/lib/sendmail.cf.  Thus, these values are only approximations.

       /usr/lib/aliases              raw data for alias names
       /usr/lib/aliases.pag
       /usr/lib/aliases.dir          data base of alias names
       /usr/lib/sendmail.cf          configuration file
       /usr/lib/sendmail.fc          frozen configuration
       /usr/lib/sendmail.hf          help file
       /usr/lib/sendmail.st          collected statistics
       /usr/spool/mqueue/*           temp files

SEE ALSO
       binmail(1),  mail(1),  rmail(1), syslog(3), aliases(5), sendmail.cf(5),
       mailaddr(7), rc(8);
       DARPA Internet Request For Comments RFC819, RFC821, RFC822;
       Sendmail - An Internetwork Mail Router (SMM:16);
       Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide (SMM:7)


4th Berkeley Distribution        May 22, 1986                      SENDMAIL(8)
 
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