sendmail
8.12.11
Configuration Utilities
The sendmail configuration file (sendmail.cf) controls how
your Virtual Server sends and receives E-Mail.
It uses options, rules, and other directives to modify the behavior of the
sendmail program. Because of the sendmail configuration file's
complexity, many have shied away from modifying the default Virtual Server
sendmail configuration.
Creating and customizing a configuration file is much easier if you use
the m4 macro preprocessor. The m4 preprocessor reads directives from a
file whose name ends with .mc (for "macro configuration") and generates
a sendmail configuration file in a file whose name ends with .cf.
When you rename the file to sendmail.cf and store it in your Virtual
Server ~/etc directory, it becomes your sendmail configuration
file.
Installation
To install the sendmail configuration utilities, including m4 macros for generating sendmail
configuration files, do the following, depending on your Virtual Server O/S.
The installation script installs the macros and sendmail configuration tools in the directory
~/usr/local/sendmail and its subdirectories. It does not change your existing sendmail
configuration file or setup in any way! The m4 macros include slight modifications for the VPS environment.
Some sample .mc files (and corresponding .cf files) are installed into the directory
~/usr/local/sendmail/cf/cf. They illustrate how to control spam with the access.db and by
querying the mail-abuse.org online anti-spam databases.
Documentation
A sizable README file documents
many additional features, and gives numerous examples. The
README file is located at
~/usr/local/sendmail/cf/README.
More Information
Chapter 19 of the second edition of the book Sendmail by Bryan Costales and Eric Allman (Sebastopol,
CA: O'Reilly, 1997) describes the procedure for generating configuration files with the m4 macro preprocessor.
Additional information is available online:
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