xref: /csrg-svn/usr.sbin/sendmail/READ_ME (revision 57979)
141139Sbostic/*-
2*57979Seric *	@(#)READ_ME	6.4 (Berkeley) 02/14/93
336585Sbostic */
410221Seric
557210SericTHIS IS AN ALPHA VERSION OF SENDMAIL.  DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT USING IT
657210SericIN A HEAVY PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT.  We've been running it (in various
757210Sericforms) at Berkeley for several months, but our environment is far from
857210Sericgeneral.  In particular, it hasn't been heavily tested for non-SMTP
957210Sericenvironments.  The good news is that most of the changes have been
1057210SericInternet-related, and that has been tested.
1157210Seric
1257210SericREPORT ANY BUGS to sendmail@CS.Berkeley.EDU.
1357210Seric
1457210SericTHIS IS COPYRIGHTED CODE.  BY COMPILING AND RUNNING THIS CODE YOU AGREE
1557210Sericto upgrade to the production release when it comes out.  You understand
1657210Sericthat we hope this will be by March, but if there are serious problems
1757210Sericit may be longer than that.
1857210Seric
19*57979SericYou don't have to install mail.local to run the new version of sendmail.
20*57979SericMany versions of /bin/mail take a "-d" flag or do local delivery already.
21*57979SericIn particular, mail.local is largely specific to 4.4 BSD, and will not
22*57979Sericbe easy to compile elsewhere.  It was written by Keith Bostic, not myself,
23*57979Sericand was not intended for the "general case".
2457210Seric
25*57979SericThere are several related RFCs that you may wish to read -- they are
26*57979Sericavailable via anonymous FTP to several sites, including nic.ddn.mil
27*57979Seric(directory rfc), ftp.nisc.sri.com (rfc), nis.nsf.net (RFC),
28*57979Sericnisc.jvnc.net (rfc), venera.isi.edu (in-notes), and wuarchive.wustl.edu
29*57979Seric(info/rfc).  They can also be retrieved via electronic mail by sending
30*57979Sericemail to one of:
31*57979Seric
32*57979Seric	mail-server@nisc.sri.com
33*57979Seric		Put "send rfcNNN" in message body
34*57979Seric	nis-info@nis.nsf.net
35*57979Seric		Put "send RFCnnn.TXT-1" in message body
36*57979Seric	sendrfc@jvnc.net
37*57979Seric		Put "RFCnnn" as Subject: line
38*57979Seric
39*57979SericImportant RFCs for electronic mail are:
40*57979Seric
41*57979Seric	RFC821	SMTP protocol
42*57979Seric	RFC822	Mail header format
43*57979Seric	RFC974	MX routing
44*57979Seric	RFC976	UUCP mail format
45*57979Seric	RFC1123	Host requirements (modifies 821, 822, and 974)
46*57979Seric
47*57979SericOther standards that may be of interest (but which are less directly
48*57979Sericrelevant to sendmail) are:
49*57979Seric
50*57979Seric	RFC931	Authentication server
51*57979Seric	RFC987	Mapping between RFC822 and X.400
52*57979Seric	RFC1049	Content-Type header field (extension to RFC822)
53*57979Seric
54*57979SericUnfortunately, for a variety of reasons the Makefiles are for the new
55*57979SericBerkeley "make" and will not work on the old, traditional make.  I urge
56*57979Sericyou to get this make from Net2 (available on many public FTP archives).
57*57979SericFailing that, some directories have a "Makefile.dist" that will work on
58*57979Sericolder versions of make (but don't have the niceties included).
59*57979Seric
60*57979SericSimilar comments apply to the man pages -- they use the new Berkeley
61*57979Seric-mandoc macros instead of the -man macros.  You can get these from
62*57979SericNet2 as well.
63*57979Seric
64*57979SericIF YOU WANT TO RUN THE NEW BERKELEY DB SOFTWARE:  ****  DO NOT  ****
65*57979Sericuse the version that was on the Net2 tape -- it has a number of
66*57979Sericnefarious bugs that were bad enough when I got them; you shouldn't have
67*57979Sericto go through the same thing.  Instead, get a new version via public
68*57979SericFTP from okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU, file pub/db.tar.Z.  This software
69*57979Sericis highly recommended; it gets rid of several stupid limits, it's much
70*57979Sericfaster, and the interface is nicer to animals and plants.  You will
71*57979Sericalso probably find that you have to add -I/where/you/put/db/include
72*57979Sericto the sendmail makefile to get db.h to work properly.
73*57979Seric
74*57979SericThe structure of this directory tree is:
75*57979Seric
7657210Sericcf		Source for Berkeley configuration files.  These are
7757210Seric		different than what you've seen before.  They are a
7857210Seric		fairly dramatic rewrite, requiring the new sendmail
7957210Seric		(since they use new features).
8057210Sericdoc		Documentation.  If you are getting source, read
8157210Seric		op.me -- it's long, but worth it.
8257210Sericmail.local	Source for mail.local(8), a local delivery program.
8357210Seric		Older versions of sendmail called /bin/mail with a
8457210Seric		special -d flag to mean "really deliver this mail";
8557210Seric		this is a completely new (and much smaller) program
8657210Seric		that does absolutely nothing but deliver local mail.
8757635Seric		THIS IS SPECIFIC TO 4.4BSD, and is not under my
8857635Seric		control.
8957210Sericmailstats	Statistics printing program.  It has the pathname of
9057210Seric		sendmail.st compiled in, so if you've changed that,
9157210Seric		beware.  This isn't all that useful.
9257210Sericmakemap		A program that creates the keyed maps used by the $( ... $)
9357210Seric		construct in sendmail.  It is primitive but effective.
9457210Seric		It takes a very simple input format, so you will probably
9557210Seric		expect to preprocess must human-convenient formats
9657210Seric		using sed scripts before this program will like them.
9757210Seric		But it should be functionally complete.
9857210Sericpraliases	A program to print the DBM version of the aliases file.
9957210Seric		It hasn't been converted to understand the new Berkeley
10057210Seric		DB format (which we are using).
10157210Sericrmail		Source for rmail(8).  This is used as a delivery
10257210Seric		agent for for UUCP, and could presumably be used by
10357635Seric		other non-socket oriented mailers.  Older versions of
10457635Seric		rmail are probably deficient.
10554987Sericsrc		Source for the sendmail program itself.
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