[Chapter 10] 10.9 Summary
Chapter 10sendmail 10.9 Summary sendmail sends and receives SMTP mail, processes mail aliases,
and interfaces between user mail agents and mail delivery agents.
sendmail is started as a daemon at boot time to process incoming
SMTP mail. sendmail aliases are defined in the /etc/aliases
file. The rules for interfacing between user agents and mail delivery
agents can be complex. sendmail uses the sendmail.cf file
to define these rules.Configuring the sendmail.cf file is the most difficult part
of setting up a sendmail server. The file uses a very terse
command syntax that is hard to read. Sample sendmail.cf files are
available to simplify this task. Most systems come with a sample file
and others are available with the sendmail V8 software distribution.
The sendmail V.8 sample files must first be processed by the m4
macro processor. Once the proper sample file is available very little of
it needs to be changed. Almost all of the changes needed to complete the
configuration occur at the beginning of the file and are used to define
information about the local system, such as the hostname and the name of
the mail relay host. sendmail provides an interactive testing
tool that is used to check the configuration before it is installed.This chapter concludes our study of TCP/IP servers configuration,
our last configuration task. In the next chapter we begin to
look at the ongoing tasks that are part of running a network once it
has been installed and configured. We begin this discussion with
troubleshooting.10.8 Testing sendmail.cf 11. Troubleshooting TCP/IP [ Library Home | DNS & BIND | TCP/IP | sendmail | sendmail Reference | Firewalls | Practical Security ]