Sendmail, 3rd Edition

How a Delivery Agent Is Executed

For safety and efficiency, sendmail undertakes a complicated series of steps to run (execute) a delivery agent.^[22] Some (such as setting the environment) are intended to improve security. Others (such as forking) are required so that sendmail can launch delivery agents. Here, we discuss those steps in the order in which they are taken by sendmail.

The Fork

When sendmail performs delivery, it cannot simply replace itself with the delivery agent program. Instead, it must fork(2), and the child will replace itself.

If sendmail is running in verbose mode (Verbose), it shows that it is about to start this process:

Connecting to delivery agent

If a traffic-logging file was specified with the -X command-line switch (Section 14.2), sendmail appends the following line to that file:

pid =  == EXEC the expanded A= here 

Here, the A= delivery agent equate (A=) from the delivery agent’s declaration is printed with all its sendmail macros expanded and with the recipients listed.

Next sendmail creates a pipe so that it will be able to print the email message to the delivery agent and so that it can read errors emitted by the delivery agent. See the -d11 debugging switch (-d11.1) for a description of what can go wrong.

If all has gone well, sendmail fork(2)s a copy of itself. The parent then pipes the email message to the child.

When the entire message has been sent, the parent then wait(3)s for the child to complete its work and exit(2)s. The parent collects the ...