sendmail, 4th Edition

Run Build

After you have finished configuring your m4 build file, you are ready to build sendmail. First run the following command in the sendmail source directory:

# ./Build -f /path/to/your/m4/file -n

This command first creates the obj directory in which sendmail will be built, populates that directory with symbolic links, and places a configured Makefile there. It then displays all the commands that make will generate without actually executing them.

If you are building a plain vanilla sendmail, or if you have placed your m4 file in the devtools/Site directory, you can omit the -f and the path to your m4 build file. If you wish to tune sendmail to your custom needs first, before running Build, you need to create an m4 file (as discussed earlier).

You can create your Build m4 files either outside the sendmail distribution or inside a special directory inside the distribution. If you maintain them outside, you will have to use the -f switch each time you build, but will avoid having to copy them again for each release of sendmail.

If you create a special file inside the devtools/Site directory, that file will be included without the need for an -f. The name of the file is site.config.m4. If you want to maintain several master files in that directory, you can do so depending on your operating system type. When Build runs, it prints a line that looks like the following, split to fit the page:

Configuration: pfx=, os=SunOS, rel=4.1.4, rbase=4, rroot=4.1, arch=sun4, sfx=,variant= optimized ...