SENDMAIL(8MH) COMMAND REFERENCE SENDMAIL(8MH)
NAME
sendmail, mailq - send mail over the internet
SYNOPSIS
/usr/lib/sendmail [ flags ] [ address ... ]
newaliases
mailq
DESCRIPTION
The sendmail program sends a message to one or more people,
routing the message over whatever networks are necessary.
The sendmail program does internetwork forwarding as
necessary to deliver the message to the correct place.
If invoked as newaliases, sendmail will rebuild the alias
data base. If invoked as mailq, sendmail will print the
contents of the mail queue.
Sendmail is not intended as a user interface routine; other
programs provide user-friendly front ends; sendmail is used
only to deliver preformatted messages.
With no flags, sendmail reads its standard input up to a
control-D or a line with a single dot and sends a copy of
the letter found there to all of the addresses listed. It
determines the network 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'.
If the first character of the user name is a vertical bar,
the rest of the user name is used as the name of a program
to pipe the mail to. It may be necessary to quote the name
of the user to keep sendmail from suppressing the blanks
from between arguments.
OPTIONS
-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.
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SENDMAIL(8MH) COMMAND REFERENCE SENDMAIL(8MH)
-bi Initialize the alias data base.
-bm Deliver mail in the usual way (default).
-bp Print a listing of the queue.
-bs Use the S.TP 5P protocol as described in RFC821.
This flag implies all the operations of the -ba flag
that are compatible with S.TP 5P.
-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.
-Cfilename
Use alternate configuration file.
-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 the
special users 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.
-i Deliver sendmail interactively (i.e. wait until
delivered).
-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'
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SENDMAIL(8MH) COMMAND REFERENCE SENDMAIL(8MH)
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.
-rname An alternate and obsolete form of the -f flag.
-t Read message for recipients. To:, Cc:, and Bcc:
lines will be scanned for people to send to. The
Bcc: line will be deleted before transmission. Any
addresses in the argument list will be suppressed.
-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
administrator. 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 Installation and Operation
Guide. The options are:
Afilename
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.
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SENDMAIL(8MH) COMMAND REFERENCE SENDMAIL(8MH)
f Save UTek-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 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.
Sfile Save statistics in the named file.
s Always instantiate the queue file, even under
circumstances where it is not strictly necessary.
Ttime Set the timeout on messages in the queue to the
specified time. After sitting in the queue for this
amount of time, they 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.
xla If the load average is greater than la mail is
queued (for later delivery) rather than processed
immediately.
Xla If the load average is greater than la remote smtp
connections to the daemon are refused.
EXAMPLES
Given a file testletter like:
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SENDMAIL(8MH) COMMAND REFERENCE SENDMAIL(8MH)
To: joe
Subject: Sample sendmail letter
This is the hard way to send mail
The command to mail it would be:
sendmail -t -i -v <testletter
The -t tells sendmail to read the addresses from the letter.
The -i tells sendmail to deliver interactively (i.e. wait
until delivered). The -v causes sendmail to give a short
synopsis of what it is doing.
FILES
Except for /usr/lib/sendmail.cf and $HOME/.forward, these
path names are all specified in /usr/lib/sendmail.cf. Thus,
these values are only approximations.
$HOME/.forward forwarding address
/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/bin/uux to deliver uucp mail
/usr/lib/mail/mh_deliver
to deliver local mail
/usr/spool/mqueue/*
temp files
DIAGNOSTICS
If there was an error in sending the letter, sendmail will
either send mail back to the sender, write a message to the
user, or exit with a status (depending on configuration and
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flags).
VARIABLES
HOME The user's home directory. Used to find the
.forward file."
NAME Full name placed on outgoing mail
RETURN VALUE
The sendmail program 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.
CAVEATS
The sendmail program converts blanks in addresses to dots;
this is incorrect according to the old ARPANET mail protocol
RFC733 (NIC 41952), but is consistent with the new protocols
(RFC822).
SEE ALSO
mail(1mh) and mailaddr(7).
Printed 4/6/89 6
%%index%%
na:384,97;
sy:481,512;
de:993,2418;
op:3411,471;4338,2505;7299,2539;10294,1875;
ex:12169,144;12769,714;
fi:13483,1291;
di:14774,396;15626,14;
va:15640,270;
rv:15910,976;
ca:16886,370;
se:17256,162;
%%index%%000000000231