Sendmail, 3rd Edition

Show an Item

Beginning with V8.7 sendmail, two rule-testing commands became available: the =S command displays all the rules in a given rule set, and the =M command displays all the delivery agents. Both display their items after the configuration has been read. Thus, in the case of rules, all the macros will have already been expanded.

Both commands are triggered by the leading = character. If nothing follows the =, this usage message is printed:

Usage: =Sruleset or =M

If any character other than S or M follows the = character, the following error is printed:

Unknown "=" command =bad character here

Show Rules in a Rule Set with =S

The =S rule-testing command causes sendmail to show all the rules of a rule set. The form of this command looks like this:

=Sruleset

Optional whitespace can separate the ruleset from the S. The ruleset can be a number or a symbolic name (Section 19.1.2):

=S0                ←a number
=SMyrule←a name

Note that, although sendmail macros can be used in defining rule sets (Section 19.1.4), they cannot be used with the =S command:

> =S$X
invalid ruleset name: "$X"
Undefined ruleset $X
>

One use for the =S command is to determine why a rule set is not behaving as expected. Consider a rule set named LocalizeSender that is intended to rewrite all sending addresses so that the local host’s name makes the message appear as though it came from the mail hub machine. Suppose that, when testing, you send an address through that rule but it comes out unchanged:

> LocalizeSender bob@localhost ...