sendmail, 4th Edition

Recommended Permissions

Table 4-1 shows the recommended ownerships and permissions for all the files and directories in the sendmail system. The path components will vary depending on the vendor version of sendmail you are running. For example, where we show the /usr/sbin/sendmail directory, your site might use /usr/lib/sendmail, or even /usr/lib/mail/sendmail.

In Table 4-1, we show the owner as root, or as a T (which means the owner can be the user listed with the TrustedUser option; TrustedUser on page 1112), or as an R (which means the owner must be the one specified by the RunAsUser option; RunAsUser on page 1083) if that option was specified. Under the “Owner” column, we show a colon and the group when the group is important.

Table 4-1. Recommended permissions for V8.12 and above

Path	Type	Owner	Mode
/	Directory	root	0755	drwxr-xr-x
/usr	Directory	root	0755	drwxr-xr-x
/usr/sbin[a]	Directory	root	0755	drwxr-xr-x
/usr/sbin/sendmail	File	root:smmsp	02555	-r-xr-sr-x[b]
/etc	Directory	root	0755	drwxr-xr-x
/etc/mail	Directory	root,T	0755	drwxr-xr-x
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf	File	root,T	0644 or 0640
/etc/mail/statistics	File	root,T,R	0600	-rw-------
/etc/mail/helpfile	File	root,T	0444	-r--r--r--
/etc/mail/aliases	File	root,T	0644	-rw-r--r--
/etc/mail/aliases.pag	File	root,T,R	0640	-rw-r-----
/etc/mail/aliases.dir	File	root,T,R	0640	-rw-r-----
/etc/mail/aliases.db	File	root,T,R	0640	-rw-r-----
F/path	Directory	root,T ...