SENDMAIL(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual	      SENDMAIL(8)


NAME
     sendmail - send mail over the internet

SYNOPSIS
     /usr/sbin/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 forwarding 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 message 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 examined for the name
		 of the sender.

     -bd	 Run as a daemon.  This requires Berkeley IPC.
		 Sendmail will fork and run in background listen-
		 ing 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.


Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			1


SENDMAIL(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual	      SENDMAIL(8)


     -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 com-
		 patible with SMTP.

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

     -bv	 Verify names only - do not try to collect or
		 deliver a message.  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 confi-
		 guration file is specified.  The frozen confi-
		 guration 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 (normally 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 incre-
		 mented 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 minutes, `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.


Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			2


SENDMAIL(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual	      SENDMAIL(8)


     -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 transmis-
		 sion.	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.  Normally these will only be used by a system adminis-
     trator.  Options may be set either on the command line using
     the -o flag or in the configuration file.	These are
     described in detail in the Sendmail Installation and Opera-
     tion 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 queueing.

     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 necessary.

     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 mes-
		 sages.


Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			3


SENDMAIL(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual	      SENDMAIL(8)


     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 terminator.

     Ln          The log level.

     m		 Send to ``me'' (the sender) also if I am in an
		 alias expansion.

     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 neces-
		 sary.	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 messages 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:


Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			4


SENDMAIL(8)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual	      SENDMAIL(8)


	  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 reci-
     pients.  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 con-
     tents of the mail queue.

FILES
     Except for /etc/sendmail.cf, these pathnames are all speci-
     fied in /etc/sendmail.cf.	Thus, these values are only
     approximations.

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

SEE ALSO
     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)


Printed 11/26/99	October 23, 1996			5


 
Generated: 2016-12-26
Generated by man2html V0.25
page hit count: 1802
Valid CSS Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict