From Linux Man Pages
sendmail - an electronic mail transport agent
SYNOPSIS
sendmail [flags] [address ...]
newaliases
mailq [-v]
hoststat
purgestat
smtpd
DESCRIPTION
Sendmail sends a message to one or more recipients, routing the message over whatever networks are necessary.
Sendmail does internetwork forwarding as necessary to deliver the message to the correct place.
Sendmail is not intended as a user interface routine; other programs provide user-friendly front ends; sendmail
is used only to deliver pre-formatted messages.
With no flags, sendmail reads its standard input up to an end-of-file or a line consisting only of a single dot
and sends a copy of the message found there to all of the addresses listed. It determines the network(s) to use
based on the syntax and contents of the addresses.
Local addresses are looked up in a file and aliased appropriately. Aliasing can be prevented by preceding the
address with a backslash. Beginning with 8.10, the sender is included in any alias expansions, e.g., if `john'
sends to `group', and `group' includes `john' in the expansion, then the letter will also be delivered to `john'.
Parameters
-Ac Use submit.cf even if the operation mode does not indicate an initial mail submission.
-Am Use sendmail.cf even if the operation mode indicates an initial mail submission.
-Btype Set the body type to type. Current legal values are 7BIT or 8BITMIME.
-ba Go into ARPANET mode. All input lines must end with a CR-LF, and all messages will be generated with a
CR-LF at the end. Also, the ``From: and ``Sender: fields are examined for the name of the sender.
-bd Run as a daemon. Sendmail will fork and run in background listening on socket 25 for incoming SMTP con-
nections. This is normally run from /etc/rc.
-bD Same as -bd except runs in foreground.
-bh Print the persistent host status database.
-bH Purge expired entries from the persistent host status database.
-bi Initialize the alias database.
-bm Deliver mail in the usual way (default).
-bp Print a listing of the queue(s).
-bP Print number of entries in the queue(s); only available with shared memory support.
-bs Use the SMTP protocol as described in RFC821 on standard input and output. This flag implies all the
operations of the -ba flag that are compatible with SMTP.
-bt Run in address test mode. This mode reads addresses and shows the steps in parsing; it is used for debug-
ging configuration tables.
-bv Verify names only - do not try to collect or deliver a message. Verify mode is normally used for validat-
ing users or mailing lists.
-Cfile Use alternate configuration file. Sendmail gives up any enhanced (set-user-ID or set-group-ID) privileges
if an alternate configuration file is specified.
-D logfile
Send debugging output to the indicated log file instead of stdout.
-dcategory.level...
Set the debugging flag for category to level. Category is either an integer or a name specifying the
topic, and level an integer specifying the level of debugging output desired. Higher levels generally
mean more output. More than one flag can be specified by separating them with commas. A list of numeric
debugging categories can be found in the TRACEFLAGS file in the sendmail source distribution.
The option -d0.1 prints the version of sendmail and the options it was compiled with.
Most other categories are only useful with, and documented in, sendmail's source code.
-Ffullname
Set the full name of the sender.
-fname Sets the name of the ``from person (i.e., the envelope sender of the mail). This address may also be
used in the From: header if that header is missing during initial submission. The envelope sender address
is used as the recipient for delivery status notifications and may also appear in a Return-Path: header.
-f should only be used by ``trusted users (normally root, daemon, and network) or if the person you are
trying to become is the same as the person you are. Otherwise, an X-Authentication-Warning header will be
added to the message.
-G Relay (gateway) submission of a message, e.g., when rmail calls sendmail .
-hN Set the hop count to N. The hop count is incremented every time the mail is processed. When it reaches a
limit, the mail is returned with an error message, the victim of an aliasing loop. If not specified,
``Received: lines in the message are counted.
-i Ignore dots alone on lines by themselves in incoming messages. This should be set if you are reading data
from a file.
-L tag Set the identifier used in syslog messages to the supplied tag.
-N dsn Set delivery status notification conditions to dsn, which can be `never' for no notifications or a comma
separated list of the values `failure' to be notified if delivery failed, `delay' to be notified if deliv-
ery is delayed, and `success' to be notified when the message is successfully delivered.
-n Don't do aliasing.
-O option=value
Set option option to the specified value. This form uses long names. See below for more details.
-ox value
Set option x to the specified value. This form uses single character names only. The short names are not
described in this manual page; see the Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide for details.
-pprotocol
Set the name of the protocol used to receive the message. This can be a simple protocol name such as
``UUCP or a protocol and hostname, such as ``UUCP:ucbvax.
-q[time]
Process saved messages in the queue at given intervals. If time is omitted, process the queue once. Time
is given as a tagged number, with `s' being seconds, `m' being minutes (default), `h' being hours, `d'
being days, and `w' being weeks. For example, `-q1h30m' or `-q90m' would both set the timeout to one hour
thirty minutes. By default, sendmail will run in the background. This option can be used safely with
-bd.
-qp[time]
Similar to -qtime, except that instead of periodically forking a child to process the queue, sendmail
forks a single persistent child for each queue that alternates between processing the queue and sleeping.
The sleep time is given as the argument; it defaults to 1 second. The process will always sleep at least
5 seconds if the queue was empty in the previous queue run.
-qf Process saved messages in the queue once and do not fork(), but run in the foreground.
-qG name
Process jobs in queue group called name only.
-q[!]Isubstr
Limit processed jobs to those containing substr as a substring of the queue id or not when ! is speci-
fied.
-q[!]Qsubstr
Limit processed jobs to quarantined jobs containing substr as a substring of the quarantine reason or not
when ! is specified.
-q[!]Rsubstr
Limit processed jobs to those containing substr as a substring of one of the recipients or not when ! is
specified.
-q[!]Ssubstr
Limit processed jobs to those containing substr as a substring of the sender or not when ! is specified.
-Q[reason]
Quarantine a normal queue items with the given reason or unquarantine quarantined queue items if no reason
is given. This should only be used with some sort of item matching using as described above.
-R return
Set the amount of the message to be returned if the message bounces. The return parameter can be `full'
to return the entire message or `hdrs' to return only the headers. In the latter case also local bounces
return only the headers.
-rname An alternate and obsolete form of the -f flag.
-t Read message for recipients. To:, Cc:, and Bcc: lines will be scanned for recipient addresses. The Bcc:
line will be deleted before transmission.
-V envid
Set the original envelope id. This is propagated across SMTP to servers that support DSNs and is returned
in DSN-compliant error messages.
-v Go into verbose mode. Alias expansions will be announced, etc.
-X logfile
Log all traffic in and out of mailers in the indicated log file. This should only be used as a last
resort for debugging mailer bugs. It will log a lot of data very quickly.
-- Stop processing command flags and use the rest of the arguments as addresses.
Options
There are also a number of processing options that may be set. Normally these will only be used by a system
administrator. Options may be set either on the command line using the -o flag (for short names), the -O flag
(for long names), or in the configuration file. This is a partial list limited to those options that are likely
to be useful on the command line and only shows the long names; for a complete list (and details), consult the
Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide. The options are:
AliasFile=file
Use alternate alias file.
HoldExpensive
On mailers that are considered ``expensive to connect to, don't initiate immediate connection. This
requires queueing.
CheckpointInterval=N
Checkpoint the queue file after every N successful deliveries (default 10). This avoids excessive dupli-
cate deliveries when sending to long mailing lists interrupted by system crashes.
DeliveryMode=x
Set the delivery mode to x. Delivery modes are `i' for interactive (synchronous) delivery, `b' for back-
ground (asynchronous) delivery, `q' for queue only - i.e., actual delivery is done the next time the queue
is run, and `d' for deferred - the same as `q' except that database lookups for maps which have set the -D
option (default for the host map) are avoided.
ErrorMode=x
Set error processing to mode x. Valid modes are `m' to mail back the error message, `w' to ``write back
the error message (or mail it back if the sender is not logged in), `p' to print the errors on the termi-
nal (default), `q' to throw away error messages (only exit status is returned), and `e' to do special pro-
cessing for the BerkNet. If the text of the message is not mailed back by modes `m' or `w' and if the
sender is local to this machine, a copy of the message is appended to the file dead.letter in the sender's
home directory.
SaveFromLine
Save UNIX-style From lines at the front of messages.
MaxHopCount=N
The maximum number of times a message is allowed to ``hop before we decide it is in a loop.
IgnoreDots
Do not take dots on a line by themselves as a message terminator.
SendMimeErrors
Send error messages in MIME format. If not set, the DSN (Delivery Status Notification) SMTP extension is
disabled.
ConnectionCacheTimeout=timeout
Set connection cache timeout.
ConnectionCacheSize=N
Set connection cache size.
LogLevel=n
The log level.
MeToo=False
Don't send to ``me (the sender) if I am in an alias expansion.
CheckAliases
Validate the right hand side of aliases during a newaliases(1) command.
OldStyleHeaders
If set, this message may have old style headers. If not set, this message is guaranteed to have new style
headers (i.e., commas instead of spaces between addresses). If set, an adaptive algorithm is used that
will correctly determine the header format in most cases.
QueueDirectory=queuedir
Select the directory in which to queue messages.
StatusFile=file
Save statistics in the named file.
Timeout.queuereturn=time
Set the timeout on undelivered messages in the queue to the specified time. After delivery has failed
(e.g., because of a host being down) for this amount of time, failed messages will be returned to the
sender. The default is five days.
UserDatabaseSpec=userdatabase
If set, a user database is consulted to get forwarding information. You can consider this an adjunct to
the aliasing mechanism, except that the database is intended to be distributed; aliases are local to a
particular host. This may not be available if your sendmail does not have the USERDB option compiled in.
ForkEachJob
Fork each job during queue runs. May be convenient on memory-poor machines.
SevenBitInput
Strip incoming messages to seven bits.
EightBitMode=mode
Set the handling of eight bit input to seven bit destinations to mode: m (mimefy) will convert to seven-
bit MIME format, p (pass) will pass it as eight bits (but violates protocols), and s (strict) will bounce
the message.
MinQueueAge=timeout
Sets how long a job must ferment in the queue between attempts to send it.
DefaultCharSet=charset
Sets the default character set used to label 8-bit data that is not otherwise labelled.
DialDelay=sleeptime
If opening a connection fails, sleep for sleeptime seconds and try again. Useful on dial-on-demand sites.
NoRecipientAction=action
Set the behaviour when there are no recipient headers (To:, Cc: or Bcc:) in the message to action: none
leaves the message unchanged, add-to adds a To: header with the envelope recipients, add-apparently-to
adds an Apparently-To: header with the envelope recipients, add-bcc adds an empty Bcc: header, and add-to-
undisclosed adds a header reading `To: undisclosed-recipients:;'.
MaxDaemonChildren=N
Sets the maximum number of children that an incoming SMTP daemon will allow to spawn at any time to N.
ConnectionRateThrottle=N
Sets the maximum number of connections per second to the SMTP port to N.
In aliases, the first character of a name may be a vertical bar to cause interpretation of the rest of the name
as a command to pipe the mail to. It may be necessary to quote the name to keep sendmail from suppressing the
blanks from between arguments. For example, a common alias is:
msgs: "|/usr/bin/msgs -s"
Aliases may also have the syntax ``:include:filename'' to ask sendmail to read the named file for a list of
recipients. For example, an alias such as:
poets: ":include:/usr/local/lib/poets.list"
would read /usr/local/lib/poets.list for the list of addresses making up the group.
Sendmail returns an exit status describing what it did. The codes are defined in <sysexits.h>:
EX_OK Successful completion on all addresses.
EX_NOUSER
User name not recognized.
EX_UNAVAILABLE
Catchall meaning necessary resources were not available.
EX_SYNTAX
Syntax error in address.
EX_SOFTWARE
Internal software error, including bad arguments.
EX_OSERR
Temporary operating system error, such as ``cannot fork.
EX_NOHOST
Host name not recognized.
EX_TEMPFAIL
Message could not be sent immediately, but was queued.
If invoked as newaliases, sendmail will rebuild the alias database. If invoked as mailq, sendmail will print the
contents of the mail queue. If invoked as hoststat, sendmail will print the persistent host status database. If
invoked as purgestat, sendmail will purge expired entries from the persistent host status database. If invoked
as smtpd, sendmail will act as a daemon, as if the -bd option were specified.
NOTES
sendmail often gets blamed for many problems that are actually the result of other problems, such as overly per-
missive modes on directories. For this reason, sendmail checks the modes on system directories and files to
determine if they can be trusted. Although these checks can be turned off and your system security reduced by
setting the DontBlameSendmail option, the permission problems should be fixed. For more information, see:
http://www.sendmail.org/tips/DontBlameSendmail.html
FILES
Except for the file /etc/mail/sendmail.cf itself the following pathnames are all specified in /etc/mail/send-
mail.cf. Thus, these values are only approximations.
/etc/mail/aliases
raw data for alias names
/etc/mail/aliases.db
data base of alias names
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf
configuration file
/etc/mail/helpfile
help file
/etc/mail/statistics
collected statistics
/var/spool/mqueue/*
temp files
RELATED
binmail(1), mail(1), rmail(1), syslog(3), aliases(5), mailaddr(7), rc(8)
DARPA Internet Request For Comments RFC819, RFC821, RFC822. Sendmail Installation and Operation Guide, No. 8,
SMM.
http://www.sendmail.org/
HISTORY
The sendmail command appeared in 4.2BSD.
CATEGORY