sendmail, 4th Edition

HelpFile

Specify location of the help file All versions

The sendmail program implements the SMTP (and ESMTP) HELP command by looking up help messages in a text file. Beginning with V8.7 sendmail, help messages for the -bt rule-testing mode are also looked up in that file. The location and name of that text file are specified by using the HelpFile option. If the name is the C-language value NULL, or if sendmail cannot open that file for reading, sendmail issues the following message and continues:^[390]

502 5.0.0 HELP not implemented

The help file is composed of lines of text, separated by tab characters into two fields per line. The leftmost field is an item for which help is offered. The rightmost field (the rest of the line) is the help text to be printed. A few lines in a typical help file might look like this:

help    HELP [ <topic> ]
help            The HELP command gives help info.
helo    HELO <hostname>
helo            Introduce yourself.
ehlo    EHLO <hostname>
ehlo            Introduce yourself, and request extended SMTP mode.
ehlo    Possible replies include:
ehlo            SEND            Send as mail                    [RFC821]

For an SMTP request of help vrfy, sendmail might produce:

214-VRFY <recipient>
214-     Verify an address.  If you want to see what it aliases
214-     to, use EXPN instead.
214 End of HELP info

The forms of the HelpFile option are as follows:

O HelpFile=file              ← configuration file (V8.7 and later)
-OHelpFile=file              ← command line (V8.7 and later)
define(`HELP_FILE',`file')   ← mc configuration (V8.7 and later)
OHfile                       ← configuration file (deprecated) ...