Sendmail

The new edition of sendmail has been revised to cover sendmail 8.12 - a version with more features and fundamental changes than any previous version of the Unix-based email routing program. Because the latest version of sendmail differs so significantly from earlier versions, a massive rewrite of this best-selling reference was called for. The book begins by guiding you through the building and installation of sendmail and its companion programs, such as vacation and makemap. These additional programs are pivotal to sendmail's daily operation. Next, you'll cover the day-to-day administration of sendmail. This section includes two entirely new chapters, "Performance Tuning" to help you make mail delivery as efficient as possible, and "Handling Spam" to deal with sendmail's rich anti-spam features. The next section of the book tackles the sendmail configuration file and debugging. And finally, the book wraps up with five appendices that provide more detail about sendmail than you may ever need. Altogether, versions 8.10 through 8.1 2 include dozens of new features, options, and macros, and this greatly expanded edition thoroughly addresses each, and provides and advance look at sendmail version 8.13 (expected to be released in 2003).

Table of Contents:
Preface 1. Some Basics 1.1 Email Basics 1.2 Requests for Comments (RFCs) 1.3 Email and sendmail 1.4 Basic Parts of sendmail 1.5 Basic Parts of a Mail Message 1.6 Basic Roles of sendmail 1.7 Basic Modes of sendmail 1.8 The sendmail.cf File Part I. Build and Install 2. Build and Install sendmail 2.1 Vendor Versus Compiling 2.2 Obtain the Source 2.3 The Build Script 2.4 Building with m4 2.5 Build sendmail 2.6 Install sendmail 2.7 Pitfalls 2.8 Build m4 Macro Reference 3. Tune sendmail with Compile-Time Macros 3.1 Before You Begin, a Checklist 3.2 To Port, Tune, or Debug 3.3 Pitfalls 3.4 Compile-Time Macro Reference 4. Configure sendmail.cf with m4 4.1 The m4 Preprocessor 4.2 Configure with m4 4.3 m4 Macros by Function 4.4 Masquerading 4.5 Relays 4.6 UUCP Support 4.7 Pitfalls 4.8 Configuration File Feature Reference 5. Build and Use Companion Programs 5.1 The Build Script 5.2 The editmap Program 5.3 The mail.local Delivery Agent 5.4 The mailstats Program 5.5 The makemap Program 5.6 The praliases Program 5.7 The rmail Delivery Agent 5.8 The smrsh Program 5.9 The vacation Program 5.10 Pitfalls Part II. Administration 6. Tune Performance 6.1 Handle Deep Queues 6.2 Sidestep Slow Hosts 6.3 Deliver to Files 6.4 Buffered File I/O 6.5 Use Multiple Queues 6.6 Condition the Network 6.7 Tune the Kernel 6.8 Pitfalls 7. How to Handle spam 7.1 The Local_check_ Rule Sets 7.2 How DNSBL Works 7.3 Check Headers with Rule Sets 7.4 Relaying 7.5 The access Database 7.6 The Milter Library 7.7 Pitfalls 8. Test Rule Sets with -bt 8.1 Overview 8.2 Configuration Lines 8.3 Dump a sendmail Macro or Class 8.4 Show an Item 8.5 Complex Actions Made Simple 8.6 Process-Specified Addresses 8.7 Add Debugging for Detail 8.8 Batch Rule-Set Testing 8.9 Pitfalls 9. DNS and sendmail 9.1 Overview 9.2 How sendmail Uses DNS 9.3 Set Up MX Records 9.4 How to Use nslookup 9.5 Prepare for Disaster 9.6 Pitfalls 10. Maintain Security with sendmail 10.1 Why root? 10.2 The Environment 10.3 SMTP Probes 10.4 The Configuration File 10.5 Permissions 10.6 The Aliases File 10.7 Forged Mail 10.8 Security Features 10.9 Support SMTP AUTH 10.10 STARTTLS 10.11 Other Security Information 10.12 Pitfalls 11. Manage the Queue 11.1 Overview of the Queue 11.2 Parts of a Queued Message 11.3 Using Multiple Queue Directories 11.4 Queue Groups (V8.12 and Above) 11.5 Bogus qf Files 11.6 Printing the Queue 11.7 How the Queue Is Processed 11.8 Cause Queues to Be Processed 11.9 Process Alternate Queues 11.10 Pitfalls 11.11 The qf File Internals 12. Maintain Aliases 12.1 The aliases(5) File 12.2 Forms of Alias Delivery 12.3 Write a Delivery Agent Script 12.4 Special Aliases 12.5 The Aliases Database 12.6 Prevent Aliasing with -n 12.7 Pitfalls 13. Mailing Lists and ~/.forward 13.1 Internal Mailing Lists 13.2 :include: Mailing Lists 13.3 Defining a Mailing List Owner 13.4 Exploder Mailing Lists 13.5 Problems with Mailing Lists 13.6 Packages That Help 13.7 The User's ~/.forward File 13.8 Pitfalls 14. Signals, Transactions, and Syslog 14.1 Signal the Daemon 14.2 Log Transactions with -X 14.3 Log with syslog 14.4 Pitfalls 14.5 Alphabetized syslog Equates 15. The sendmail Command Line 15.1 Alternative argv[0] Names 15.2 Command-Line Switches 15.3 List of Recipient Addresses 15.4 Processing the Command Line 15.5 sendmail's exit( ) Status 15.6 Pitfalls 15.7 Alphabetized Command-Line Switches 16. Debug sendmail with -d 16.1 The Syntax of -d 16.2 The Behavior of -d 16.3 Interpret the Output 16.4 Table of All -d Categories 16.5 Pitfalls 16.6 Reference for -d in Numerical Order Part III. The Configuration File 17. Configuration File Overview 17.1 Overall Syntax 17.2 Comments 17.3 V8 Comments 17.4 Continuation Lines 17.5 The V Configuration Command 17.6 Pitfalls 18. The R (Rules) Configuration Command 18.1 Why Rules? 18.2 The R Configuration Command 18.3 Tokenizing Rules 18.4 The Workspace 18.5 The Behavior of a Rule 18.6 The LHS 18.7 The RHS 18.8 Pitfalls 18.9 Rule Operator Reference 19. The S (Rule Sets) Configuration Command 19.1 The S Configuration Command 19.2 The Sequence of Rule Sets 19.3 The canonify Rule Set 3 19.4 The final Rule Set 4 19.5 The parse Rule Set 0 19.6 The localaddr Rule Set 5 19.7 Rule Sets 1 and 2 19.8 Pitfalls 19.9 Policy Rule-Set Reference 20. The M (Mail Delivery Agent) Configuration Command 20.1 The M Configuration Command 20.2 The Symbolic Delivery Agent Name 20.3 The mc Configuration Syntax 20.4 Delivery Agents by Name 20.5 Delivery Agent Equates 20.6 How a Delivery Agent Is Executed 20.7 Pitfalls 20.8 Delivery Agent F= Flags 21. The D (Define a Macro) Configuration Command 21.1 Preassigned sendmail Macros 21.2 Command-Line Definitions 21.3 Configuration-File Definitions 21.4 Macro Names 21.5 Macro Expansion. 21.6 Macro Conditionals. 21.7 Macros with mc Configuration 21.8 Pitfalls 21.9 Alphabetized sendmail Macros 22. The C and F (Class Macro) Configuration Commands 22.1 Class Configuration Commands 22.2 Access Classes in Rules 22.3 Classes with mc Configuration 22.4 Internal Class Macros 22.5 Pitfalls 22.6 Alphabetized Class Macros 23. The K (Database-Map) Configuration Command 23.1 Enable at Compile Time 23.2 The K Configuration Command 23.3 The K Command switches 23.4 Use ( and) in Rules 23.5 Database Maps with mc Configuration 23.6 Pitfalls 23.7 Alphabetized Database-Map Types 24. The O (Options) Configuration Command 24.1 Overview 24.2 Command-Line Options 24.3 Configuration File Options 24.4 Options in the mc File 24.5 Alphabetical Table of All Options 24.6 Option Argument Types 24.7 Interrelating Options 24.8 Pitfalls 24.9 Alphabetized Options 25. The H (Headers) Configuration Command 25.1 Overview 25.2 Header Names 25.3 Header Field Contents 25.4 'flags' in Header Definitions 25.5 Rules Check Header Contents 25.6 Header Behavior in conf.c 25.7 Headers and mc Configuration 25.8 Headers by Category 25.9 Forwarding with Resent Headers 25.10 Precedence 25.11 Pitfalls 25.12 Alphabetized Header Reference Part IV. Appendixes A. The mc Configuration Macros and Directives B. What's New Since V8.8 C. Error Message Reference D. The checkcompat( ) Cookbook E. A Map to Tutorial Information Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Bryan Costales is CTO with SL3D, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado. He has been active in system administration for over fifteen years and has been writing articles and books about computer software for over twenty years. His most notable books are C from A to Z (Prentice Hall), Unix Communications (Howard Sams), and, of course, sendmail (O'Reilly & Associates). Eric Allman is Sendmail, Inc.'s chief technology officer and co-founder. Allman authored sendmail, the world's first Internet Mail program, in 1981 while at the University of California at Berkeley. He continues to spearhead sendmail.org, the global team of volunteers that maintain and support the sendmail open source platform.

Review :
"If you are running a complex sendmail installation, possibly including multiple servers, mailing lists and the rest, you'll find this book invaluable."Computer Shopper, May 2004