Billy R Nordyke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Does the linuxconf mailconf work properly with RH 7.2? The FAQs at
> sendmail.org say not to use it to edit sendmail.cf with RH 7.1. What is
> the proper config program for sendmail? Is it proper to use emacs to
> edit sendmail.cf? I have read the man pages for sendmail and have
> visited sendmail.org. It doesn't take too much to confuse me. I do
> finally have fetchmail working. Does sendmail both send and receive mail
> if set up properly?
Can't really answer your lead question. I know there are problems
with linuxconf, and that it will not be part of redaht distros at some
point.
But may be able to offer some backgroun information about sendmail, so
that you have some idea of what you are getting into.
Sendmail is a very complex program, the full book about it is some 1000
pages long. Its not something you casually learn in an hour or so.
Some edits are simple enough to make. If someone shows you how.
Sendmail doesn't really send and receive like one would think of with
a mail client like pine or netscape. To sendmail, all mail is being
sent somewhere. It is a Mail Transport Agent (MTA). So, its job is
to transport electronic messages. You can think of it as something
like the postoffice.
The main configuration file:
sendmail.cf is generated by the m4 compiler. It can be hand edited
but usually confined to small items like inserting a Smart_host ip
address, or a host to masquerade as. The canonical way to edit
sendmail.cf is to install the sendmail-cf rpm, then cd to
/usr/share/sendmail-cf/cf Pick one of the files that end in *.mc to
edit for your own purpose. Usually it would be redhat.mc I think.
It requires knowlegde of what things can be entered or subtracted. A
lot of it is explained in the README one directory up:
/usr/share/sendmail-cf/README But it is not light reading.
You would open the *.mc file with any editor you like. And edit to
suit.
Once you've figured out enough to edit the redhat.mc file to suite
your needs you would save it as something like `my.mc'
Then to turn it into a sendmail.cf file, in recent versions of redhat
(7.1 and 7.2 for sure) You just use the `Build' script in your current
directory. /usr/share/sendmail-cf/cf/Build. And say
./Build my.cf
At that point the m4 program reads `my.mc' and generates `my.cf' for
you. Giving it the proper format and permissions to be copied into
/etc/sendmail.cf.
>From that point you would copy it to /etc/sendmail.cf and restart
sendmail for it to get read and become the active configuration.
To restart sendmail use:
service sendmail restart
But understand that if you don't know what you are doing while editing,
it is very likley you could end up with a non-fucntional sendmail, and
cause mail send/receive to fail completely in many unpredictable ways.
Some clients, like netscape, do not use sendmail and can still be used
if you do bugger sendmail up.
There are many sites on line that discuss sendmail and configurations.
Some links on www.redaht.com lead to common config items like
masquerade or smart_host editing.
So, to cut to the chase. Learning `sendmail' enough to be
semi-competent is quite a big undertaking. One can get by by learning
the simple and common edits that are needed. But you'd have to ask
specific questions and show your configurations. Any error messages
etc. And start be explaining what you hope to accomplish.
_______________________________________________
Redhat-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
