sendmail(4) File Formats sendmail(4)NAME
sendmail, sendmail.cf, submit.cf - sendmail configuration files
SYNOPSIS
/etc/mail/sendmail.cf
/etc/mail/submit.cf
DESCRIPTION
The sendmail.cf and submit.cf files are the configuration files for
sendmail(1M). Starting with version 8.12 of sendmail, which was shipped
with version 9 of the Solaris operating system, two configuration files
are used for submission and transmission of mail, instead of only send‐
mail.cf, as before. These are:
sendmail.cf Remains the principal sendmail configuration file. Used
for the Mail Transmission Agent (MTA).
submit.cf Used for the Mail Submission Program (MSP). The MSP is
used to submit mail messages. Unlike the MTA, it does
not run as an SMTP daemon.
The MSP does not require root privileges, thus the two-file model pro‐
vides better security than the pre-sendmail 8.12 model, in which the
MSP ran as a daemon and required root privileges.
In the default sendmail configuration, sendmail uses submit.cf, as
indicated in ps(1) output. In ps output, you will observe two sendmail
invocations, such as the ones below:
/usr/lib/sendmail -Ac -q15m
/usr/lib/sendmail -bd -q15m
The first indicates the use of submit.cf, with the client queue
(/var/spool/clientmqueue) being checked—and, if needed, flushed—every
15 minutes. The second invocation runs sendmail as a daemon, waiting
for incoming SMTP connections.
As shipped, sendmail.cf and, in particular, submit.cf, are appropriate
for most environments. Where a knowledgeable system administrator needs
to make a change, he should use the following procedures.
For sendmail.cf:
1. Change directories to the directory that contains the source
files for the configuration files.
# cd /etc/mail/cf/cf
2. Create a copy of the sendmail file for your system.
# cp sendmail.mc `hostname`.mc
3. Edit `hostname`.mc. Make changes suitable for your system
and environment.
4. Run make to generate the configuration file.
# /usr/ccs/bin/make `hostname`.cf
5. Copy the newly generated file to its correct location.
# cp `hostname`.cf /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
6. Restart the sendmail service.
# svcadm restart sendmail
You must restart sendmail for sendmail.cf file changes to take effect,
as indicated in step 6. Steps 4 - 6 can be automated. See Automated
Rebuilding of Configuration Files below.
For submit.cf:
1. Change directories to the directory that contains the source
files for the configuration files.
# cd /etc/mail/cf/cf
2. Create a copy of the submit file for your system.
# cp submit.mc submit-`hostname`.mc
3. Edit submit-`hostname`.mc. Make changes suitable for your
system and environment.
4. Run make to generate the configuration file.
# /usr/ccs/bin/make submit-`hostname`.cf
5. Copy the newly generated file to its correct location.
# cp submit-`hostname`.cf /etc/mail/submit.cf
You do not need to restart sendmail for changes to submit.cf to take
effect. Steps 4 and 5 can be automated. See Automated Rebuilding of
Configuration Files below.
Enabling Access to Remote Clients
The sendmail(1M) man page describes how the config/local_only property
can be set to true or false to disallow or allow, respectively, access
to remote clients for unmodified systems.
Automated Rebuilding of Configuration Files
Setting a value for the:
path_to_sendmail_mc
property for the service instance:
svc:/network/smtp:sendmail
and setting a value for the:
path_to_submit_mc
for the service instance:
svc:/network/sendmail-client:default
results in automated (re)building of configuration files.
The value for each of these properties should be a string that repre‐
sents the path name of the .mc files referred to in steps 2 and 3 of
both procedures in the DESCRIPTION. Recommended values are:
/etc/mail/cf/cf/`hostname`.mc
/etc/mail/cf/cf/submit-`hostname`.mc
Each property, if set, results in the corresponding .mc file being used
to (re)build the matching .cf file when the corresponding instance/ser‐
vice is started.
These properties persist across upgrades and patches. To prevent a
patch or upgrade from clobbering your .cf file, or renaming it to
.cf.old, you can set the desired properties instead.
FILES
/etc/mail/cf/README Describes sendmail configuration files.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │service/network/smtp/sendmail │
├─────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Committed │
└─────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOps(1), sendmail(1M), svcadm(1M), make(1S), attributes(5)
System Administration Guide: Network Services
SunOS 5.10 28 Mar 2011 sendmail(4)
