4 This directory has the latest sendmail(TM) software from Sendmail, Inc.
6 Report any bugs to sendmail-bugs-YYYY@support.sendmail.org
7 where YYYY is the current year, e.g., 2005.
9 There is a web site at http://www.sendmail.org/ -- see that site for
16 0. The vast majority of queries about sendmail are answered in the
17 README files noted below.
19 1. Read this README file, especially this introduction, and the DIRECTORY
22 2. Read the INSTALL file in this directory.
24 3. Read sendmail/README, especially:
26 b. the BUILDING SENDMAIL section
27 c. the relevant part(s) of the OPERATING SYSTEM AND COMPILE QUIRKS section
29 You may also find these useful:
33 f. devtools/Site/README
40 Sendmail is a trademark of Sendmail, Inc.
42 +-----------------------+
43 | DIRECTORY PERMISSIONS |
44 +-----------------------+
46 Sendmail often gets blamed for many problems that are actually the
47 result of other problems, such as overly permissive modes on directories.
48 For this reason, sendmail checks the modes on system directories and
49 files to determine if they can be trusted. For sendmail to run without
50 complaining, you MUST execute the following command:
52 chmod go-w / /etc /etc/mail /usr /var /var/spool /var/spool/mqueue
53 chown root / /etc /etc/mail /usr /var /var/spool /var/spool/mqueue
55 You will probably have to tweak this for your environment (for example,
56 some systems put the spool directory into /usr/spool instead of
57 /var/spool). If you set the RunAsUser option in your sendmail.cf, the
58 /var/spool/mqueue directory will have to be owned by the RunAsUser user.
59 As a general rule, after you have compiled sendmail, run the command
63 to initialize the alias database. If it gives messages such as
65 WARNING: writable directory /etc
66 WARNING: writable directory /var/spool/mqueue
68 then the directories listed have inappropriate write permissions and
69 should be secured to avoid various possible security attacks.
71 Beginning with sendmail 8.9, these checks have become more strict to
72 prevent users from being able to access files they would normally not
73 be able to read. In particular, .forward and :include: files in unsafe
74 directory paths (directory paths which are group or world writable) will
75 no longer be allowed. This would mean that if user joe's home directory
76 was writable by group staff, sendmail would not use his .forward file.
77 This behavior can be altered, at the expense of system security, by
78 setting the DontBlameSendmail option. For example, to allow .forward
79 files in group writable directories:
81 O DontBlameSendmail=forwardfileingroupwritabledirpath
83 Or to allow them in both group and world writable directories:
85 O DontBlameSendmail=forwardfileinunsafedirpath
87 Items from these unsafe .forward and :include: files will be marked
88 as unsafe addresses -- the items can not be deliveries to files or
89 programs. This behavior can also be altered via DontBlameSendmail:
91 O DontBlameSendmail=forwardfileinunsafedirpath,
92 forwardfileinunsafedirpathsafe
94 The first flag allows the .forward file to be read, the second allows
95 the items in the file to be marked as safe for file and program
98 Other files affected by this strengthened security include class
99 files (i.e., Fw /etc/mail/local-host-names), persistent host status files,
100 and the files specified by the ErrorHeader and HelpFile options. Similar
101 DontBlameSendmail flags are available for the class, ErrorHeader, and
104 If you have an unsafe configuration of .forward and :include:
105 files, you can make it safe by finding all such files, and doing
106 a "chmod go-w $FILE" on each. Also, do a "chmod go-w $DIR" for
107 each directory in the file's path.
110 +--------------------------+
111 | FILE AND MAP PERMISSIONS |
112 +--------------------------+
114 Any application which uses either flock() or fcntl() style locking or
115 other APIs that use one of these locking methods (such as open() with
116 O_EXLOCK and O_SHLOCK) on files readable by other local untrusted users
117 may be susceptible to local denial of service attacks.
119 File locking is used throughout sendmail for a variety of files
120 including aliases, maps, statistics, and the pid file. Any user who
121 can open one of these files can prevent sendmail or it's associated
122 utilities, e.g., makemap or newaliases, from operating properly. This
123 can also affect sendmail's ability to update status files such as
124 statistics files. For system which use flock() for file locking, a
125 user's ability to obtain an exclusive lock prevents other sendmail
126 processes from reading certain files such as alias or map databases.
128 A workaround for this problem is to protect all sendmail files such
129 that they can't be opened by untrusted users. As long as users can
130 not open a file, they can not lock it. Since queue files should
131 already have restricted permissions, the only files that need
132 adjustment are alias, map, statistics, and pid files. These files
133 should be owned by root or the trusted user specified in the
134 TrustedUser option. Changing the permissions to be only readable and
135 writable by that user is sufficient to avoid the denial of service.
136 For example, depending on the paths you use, these commands would be
139 chmod 0640 /etc/mail/aliases /etc/mail/aliases.{db,pag,dir}
140 chmod 0640 /etc/mail/*.{db,pag,dir}
141 chmod 0640 /etc/mail/statistics /var/log/sendmail.st
142 chmod 0600 /var/run/sendmail.pid /etc/mail/sendmail.pid
144 If the permissions 0640 are used, be sure that only trusted users belong
145 to the group assigned to those files. Otherwise, files should not even
146 be group readable. As of sendmail 8.12.4, the permissions shown above
147 are the default permissions for newly created files.
149 Note that the denial of service on the plain text aliases file
150 (/etc/mail/aliases) only prevents newaliases from rebuilding the
151 aliases file. The same is true for the database files on systems which
152 use fcntl() style locking. Since it does not interfere with normal
153 operations, sites may chose to leave these files readable. Also, it is
154 not necessary to protect the text files associated with map databases
155 as makemap does not lock those files.
158 +-----------------------+
159 | RELATED DOCUMENTATION |
160 +-----------------------+
162 There are other files you should read. Rooted in this directory are:
165 The FAQ (frequently answered questions) is no longer maintained
166 with the sendmail release. It is available at
167 http://www.sendmail.org/faq/ . The file FAQ is a reminder of
168 this and a pointer to the web page.
170 Installation instructions for building and installing sendmail.
172 Known bugs in the current release.
174 A detailed description of the changes in each version. This
175 is quite long, but informative.
177 Details on compiling and installing sendmail.
179 Details on configuring sendmail.
181 The sendmail Installation & Operations Guide. In addition
182 to the shipped PostScript version, plain text and PDF versions
183 can be generating using (assuming the required conversion software
184 is installed on your system, see doc/op/Makefile):
186 cd doc/op && make op.txt op.pdf
188 Be warned: on some systems calling make in doc/op/ will cause
189 errors due to nroff/groff problems. Known problems are:
190 - running this off on systems with an old version of -me, you
191 need to add the following macro to the macros:
197 This sets a word in a smaller pointsize.
199 - with new groff versions (1.18 seems affected)
203 needs to be set, e.g., in doc/op/Makefile:
205 ROFF_CMD= GROFF_NO_SGR=1 groff
212 There are several related RFCs that you may wish to read -- they are
213 available via anonymous FTP to several sites. For a list of the
214 primary repositories see:
216 http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc-retrieval.txt
218 They are also online at:
222 They can also be retrieved via electronic mail by sending
225 mail-server@nisc.sri.com
226 Put "send rfcNNN" in message body
228 Put "send RFCnnn.TXT-1" in message body
230 Put "RFCnnn" as Subject: line
232 For further instructions see:
234 http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc-editor/rfc-info
236 Important RFCs for electronic mail are:
239 RFC822 Mail header format
241 RFC976 UUCP mail format
242 RFC1123 Host requirements (modifies 821, 822, and 974)
243 RFC1344 Implications of MIME for Internet Mail Gateways
244 RFC1413 Identification server
245 RFC1428 Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to
247 RFC1652 SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport
248 RFC1869 SMTP Service Extensions (ESMTP spec)
249 RFC1870 SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration
250 RFC1891 SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status Notifications
251 RFC1892 Multipart/Report Content Type for the Reporting of
252 Mail System Administrative Messages
253 RFC1893 Enhanced Mail System Status Codes
254 RFC1894 An Extensible Message Format for Delivery Status
256 RFC1985 SMTP Service Extension for Remote Message Queue Starting
257 RFC2033 Local Mail Transfer Protocol (LMTP)
258 RFC2034 SMTP Service Extension for Returning Enhanced Error Codes
259 RFC2045 Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part One:
260 Format of Internet Message Bodies
261 RFC2476 Message Submission
262 RFC2487 SMTP Service Extension for Secure SMTP over TLS
263 RFC2554 SMTP Service Extension for Authentication
264 RFC2821 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
265 RFC2822 Internet Message Format
266 RFC2852 Deliver By SMTP Service Extension
267 RFC2920 SMTP Service Extension for Command Pipelining
269 Other standards that may be of interest (but which are less directly
270 relevant to sendmail) are:
272 RFC987 Mapping between RFC822 and X.400
273 RFC1049 Content-Type header field (extension to RFC822)
275 Warning to AIX users: this version of sendmail does not implement
276 MB, MR, or MG DNS resource records, as defined (as experiments) in
284 Since sendmail 8.11 and later includes hooks to cryptography, the
285 following information from OpenSSL applies to sendmail as well.
287 PLEASE REMEMBER THAT EXPORT/IMPORT AND/OR USE OF STRONG CRYPTOGRAPHY
288 SOFTWARE, PROVIDING CRYPTOGRAPHY HOOKS OR EVEN JUST COMMUNICATING
289 TECHNICAL DETAILS ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY SOFTWARE IS ILLEGAL IN SOME
290 PARTS OF THE WORLD. SO, WHEN YOU IMPORT THIS PACKAGE TO YOUR
291 COUNTRY, RE-DISTRIBUTE IT FROM THERE OR EVEN JUST EMAIL TECHNICAL
292 SUGGESTIONS OR EVEN SOURCE PATCHES TO THE AUTHOR OR OTHER PEOPLE
293 YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO ANY EXPORT/IMPORT
294 AND/OR USE LAWS WHICH APPLY TO YOU. THE AUTHORS ARE NOT LIABLE FOR
295 ANY VIOLATIONS YOU MAKE HERE. SO BE CAREFUL, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.
297 If you use OpenSSL then make sure you read their README file which
298 contains information about patents etc.
301 +-------------------+
302 | DATABASE ROUTINES |
303 +-------------------+
305 IF YOU WANT TO RUN THE NEW BERKELEY DB SOFTWARE: **** DO NOT ****
306 use the version that was on the Net2 tape -- it has a number of
307 nefarious bugs that were bad enough when I got them; you shouldn't have
308 to go through the same thing. Instead, get a new version via the web at
309 http://www.sleepycat.com/. This software is highly recommended; it gets
310 rid of several stupid limits, it's much faster, and the interface is
311 nicer to animals and plants. If the Berkeley DB include files
312 are installed in a location other than those which your compiler searches,
313 you will need to provide that directory when building:
315 Build -I/path/to/include/directory
317 If you are using Berkeley DB versions 1.85 or 1.86, you are *strongly*
318 urged to upgrade to DB version 2 or later, available from
319 http://www.sleepycat.com/. Berkeley DB versions 1.85 and 1.86 are known to
320 be broken in various nasty ways (see http://www.sleepycat.com/db.185.html),
321 and can cause sendmail to dump core. In addition, the newest versions of
322 gcc and the Solaris compilers perform optimizations in those versions that
323 may cause fairly random core dumps.
325 If you have no choice but to use Berkeley DB 1.85 or 1.86, and you are
326 using both Berkeley DB and files in the UNIX ndbm format, remove ndbm.h
327 and ndbm.o from the DB library after building it. You should also apply
328 all of the patches for DB 1.85 and 1.86 found at the Sleepycat web site
329 (see http://www.sleepycat.com/db.185.html), as they fix some of the known
332 If you are using a version of Berkeley DB 2 previous to 2.3.15, and you
333 are using both Berkeley DB and files in the UNIX ndbm format, remove dbm.o
334 from the DB library after building it. No other changes are necessary.
336 If you are using Berkeley DB version 2.3.15 or greater, no changes are
339 The underlying database file formats changed between Berkeley DB versions
340 1.85 and 1.86, again between DB 1.86 and version 2.0, and finally between
341 DB 2.X and 3.X. If you are upgrading from one of those versions, you must
342 recreate your database file(s). Do this by rebuilding all maps with
343 makemap and rebuilding the alias file with newaliases.
346 +--------------------+
347 | HOST NAME SERVICES |
348 +--------------------+
350 If you are using NIS or /etc/hosts, it is critical that you
351 list the long (fully qualified) name somewhere (preferably first) in
352 the /etc/hosts file used to build the NIS database. For example, the
355 128.32.149.68 mastodon.CS.Berkeley.EDU mastodon
359 128.32.149.68 mastodon
361 If you do not include the long name, sendmail will complain loudly
362 about ``unable to qualify my own domain name (mastodon) -- using
363 short name'' and conclude that your canonical name is the short
364 version and use that in messages. The name "mastodon" doesn't mean
365 much outside of Berkeley, and so this creates incorrect and unreplyable
373 This version of sendmail notices and reports certain kinds of SMTP
374 protocol violations that were ignored by older versions. If you
375 are running MH you may wish to install the patch in contrib/mh.patch
376 that will prevent these warning reports. This patch also works
377 with the old version of sendmail, so it's safe to go ahead and
385 Sendmail 8 supports the IDENT protocol, as defined by RFC 1413.
386 Note that the RFC states a client should wait at least 30 seconds
387 for a response. As of 8.10.0, the default Timeout.ident is 5 seconds
388 as many sites have adopted the practice of dropping IDENT queries.
389 This has lead to delays processing mail.
391 No ident server is included with this distribution. It is available
394 ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/ident/servers/
395 http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/~pen/pidentd/
397 +-------------------------+
398 | INTEROPERATION PROBLEMS |
399 +-------------------------+
401 Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0
402 We have had a report that ``about 7% of messages from Sendmail
403 to Exchange were not being delivered with status messages of
404 "connection reset" and "I/O error".'' Upgrading Exchange from
405 Version 5.0 to Version 5.5 Service Pack 2 solved this problem.
408 CommuniGate Pro 3.2.4 does not accept the AUTH= -parameter on
409 the MAIL FROM command if the client is not authenticated. Use
411 define(`confAUTH_OPTIONS', `A')
413 in .mc file if you have compiled sendmail with Cyrus SASL
414 and you communicate with CommuniGate Pro servers.
416 +---------------------+
417 | DIRECTORY STRUCTURE |
418 +---------------------+
420 The structure of this directory tree is:
422 cf Source for sendmail configuration files. These are
423 different than what you've seen before. They are a
424 fairly dramatic rewrite, requiring the new sendmail
425 (since they use new features).
426 contrib Some contributed tools to help with sendmail. THESE
427 ARE NOT SUPPORTED by sendmail -- contact the original
428 authors if you have problems. (This directory is not
430 devtools Build environment. See devtools/README.
431 doc Documentation. If you are getting source, read
432 op.me -- it's long, but worth it.
433 editmap A program to edit and query maps that have been created
434 with makemap, e.g., adding and deleting entries.
435 include Include files used by multiple programs in the distribution.
436 libsmdb sendmail database library with support for Berkeley DB 1.X,
437 Berkeley DB 2.X, Berkeley DB 3.X, and NDBM.
438 libsmutil sendmail utility library with functions used by different
440 mail.local The source for the local delivery agent used for 4.4BSD.
441 THIS IS NOT PART OF SENDMAIL! and may not compile
442 everywhere, since it depends on some 4.4-isms. Warning:
443 it does mailbox locking differently than other systems.
444 mailstats Statistics printing program.
445 makemap A program that creates the keyed maps used by the $( ... $)
446 construct in sendmail. It is primitive but effective.
447 It takes a very simple input format, so you will probably
448 expect to preprocess must human-convenient formats
449 using sed scripts before this program will like them.
450 But it should be functionally complete.
451 praliases A program to print the DBM or NEWDB version of the
453 rmail Source for rmail(8). This is used as a delivery
454 agent for for UUCP, and could presumably be used by
455 other non-socket oriented mailers. Older versions of
456 rmail are probably deficient. RMAIL IS NOT PART OF
457 SENDMAIL!!! The 4.4BSD source is included for you to
458 look at or try to port to your system. There is no
459 guarantee it will even compile on your operating system.
460 smrsh The "sendmail restricted shell", which can be used as
461 a replacement for /bin/sh in the prog mailer to provide
462 increased security control. NOT PART OF SENDMAIL!
463 sendmail Source for the sendmail program itself.
464 test Some test scripts (currently only for compilation aids).
465 vacation Source for the vacation program. NOT PART OF SENDMAIL!
467 $Revision: 8.93 $, Last updated $Date: 2005/09/16 20:08:50 $