sendmail, 3/e

Reliable, flexible, and configurable enough to solve the mail routing needs of any web site, sendmail has withstood the test of time, but has become no less daunting in its complexity. Even the most experienced system administrators have found it challenging to configure and difficult to understand. For help in unraveling its intricacies, sendmail administrators have turned unanimously to one reliable source--the bat book, or sendmail by Bryan Costales and the creator of sendmail, Eric Allman. Now in its third edition, this best-selling reference will help you master the most demanding version of sendmail yet.

The new edition of sendmail has been completely 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 8.12 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).

With sendmail, Third Edition in hand, you will be able to configure this challenging but necessary utility for whatever needs your system requires. This much anticipated revision is essential reading for sendmail administrators.

Table of Contents

Preface 

1. Some Basics

Part I. Build and Install

2. Build and Install sendmail
3. Tune sendmail with Compile-Time Macros
4. Configure sendmail.cf with m4
5. Build and Use Companion Programs

Part II. Administration

6. Tune Performance
7. How to Handle spam
8. Test Rule Sets with -bt
9. DNS and sendmail
10. Maintain Security with sendmail
11. Manage the Queue
12. Maintain Aliases
13. Mailing Lists and ~/.forward
14. Signals, Transactions, and Syslog
15. The sendmail Command Line

16. Debug sendmail with -d


Part III. The Configuration File

17. Configuration File Overview
18. The R (Rules) Configuration Command
19. The S (Rule Sets) Configuration Command
20. The M (Mail Delivery Agent) Configuration Command
21. The D (Define a Macro) Configuration Command
22. The C and F (Class Macro) Configuration Commands
23. The K (Database-Map) Configuration Command
24. The O (Options) Configuration Command
25. The H (Headers) Configuration Command

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