topic Re: sendmail storage... in Operating System - HP-UX

sendmail storage...

subrat chaudhary — Sat, 05 May 2007 04:13:24 GMT

Hi experts,

Instead of a database, can sendmail use regular Unix files for storage?

Thanks in Advance
Regards,
Subrat

Re: sendmail storage...

Matti_Kurkela — Sat, 05 May 2007 04:36:58 GMT

Huh???

Normally sendmail *is* using regular Unix files: the queue for outgoing mail is located in /var/spool/mqueue and the users' inboxes are in /var/mail in HP-UX.

The use of a database for mail storage is definitely a non-default configuration.

Or did you mean the storage of /etc/mail/aliases and other configuration files? As those may be looked up each time a piece of mail must be delivered, and those files usually won't change all that often, the database or hash maps are used to make the look-up more efficient.

In a high-volume mail server, you would definitely want efficiency.

MK

Re: sendmail storage...

subrat chaudhary — Sat, 05 May 2007 04:47:11 GMT

Hi,

As per doc..
Sendmail supports two different formats for the local (on disk) version of databases
1-NDBM
2-NWEDB.

Actully What is NDBM format...and how to store messages...

Regards,
Subrat

Re: sendmail storage...

Peter Nikitka — Sat, 05 May 2007 08:49:39 GMT

Hi,

the result of Matti's post:
The pure mail message is stored in plain files.
The (N)dbm format is used to hash stored values.
Addresses/Aliases/... are stored in files of such type; look at that man page:

http://docs.hp.com/en/B2355-90691/makemap.1M.html

mfG Peter

Re: sendmail storage...

Steven E. Protter — Sat, 05 May 2007 15:34:44 GMT

Shalom,

sendmail uses files. Various clients like squirrelmail and Exchange can read these files and put the data into databases.

I'm guessing you don't have a standard installation there.

SEP