sendmail, 4th Edition

Preassigned sendmail Macros

When sendmail first begins to run, it preassigns values to certain sendmail macros. The complete list of these macros is shown in Table 21-1. Each is described in detail at the end of this chapter, in Alphabetized sendmail Macros on page 798.

Table 21-1. Preassigned macros

Macro	§	Description
$b	$b on page 807	The current date in RFC822 format
${deliveryMode}	${deliveryMode} on page 820	The current delivery mode (V8.9 and later)
$j	$j on page 830	The canonical hostname
$k	$k on page 831	UUCP node name (V8.1 and later)
${load_avg}	${load_avg} on page 832	The current load average (V8.10 and later)
$m	$m on page 833	The domain name (V8.1 and later)
$n	$n on page 836	The bounced mail sender
${opMode}	${opMode} on page 839	The startup operating mode (V8.7 and later)
$v	$v on page 849	The sendmail program’s version
$w	$w on page 850	The short name of this host

All preassigned sendmail macros can be redefined in the configuration file or in the command line. The -d35.9 (-d35.9 on page 563) debugging switch (when run on a configuration file that only contains the V version) can be used to watch sendmail predefine its macros.^[302]

Note that the mc configuration technique uses many more macros than are shown here (see Table 21-5 on page 796). But even with that technique this short list of macros is all that are internally defined by the sendmail program when it first starts up.

Also note that many more macros are defined while sendmail ...