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Sendmail, 3rd Edition
book

Sendmail, 3rd Edition

by Bryan Costales
December 2002
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
1232 pages
56h 38m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Sendmail, 3rd Edition

The sendmail.cf File

The sendmail.cf file is read and parsed by sendmail every time sendmail starts. It contains information that is necessary for sendmail to run. It lists the locations of important files and specifies the default permissions for those files. It contains options that modify sendmail’s behavior. Most important, it contains rules and rule sets for rewriting addresses.

Configuration Commands

The sendmail.cf configuration file is line-oriented. A configuration command, composed of a single letter, begins each line:

V9/Berkeley                   good
 V9/Berkeley                  bad, does not begin a line
V9/Berkeley Fw/etc/mail/mxhosts   bad, two commands on one line
Fw/etc/mail/mxhostsgood

Each configuration command is followed by parameters that are specific to it. For example, the V command is followed by a number, a slash, and a vendor name. Whereas the F command is followed by a letter (a w in the example), then the full pathname of a file. The complete list of configuration commands[18] is shown in Table 1-4.

Table 1-4. The sendmail.cf file’s configuration commands

Command

Description

C

Define a class macro

D

Define a macro

E

Define an environment variable (beginning with V8.7)

F

Define a class macro from a file, pipe, or database map

H

Define a header

K

Declare a keyed database (beginning with V8.1)

L

Include extended load average support (contributed software, not covered)

M

Define a mail delivery agent

O

Define an option

P

Define delivery priorities

Q

Define a queue ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 1565928393Errata Page