topic Re: general sendmail.cf file ? in Operating System - HP-UX

general sendmail.cf file ?

Debbie Fleith — Thu, 26 May 2005 11:33:31 GMT

Just wanted to confirm that all lines in the /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file that begin with "#" are comments and those values are not configured in sendmail.

Re: general sendmail.cf file ?

Kent Ostby — Thu, 26 May 2005 11:39:03 GMT

correct.

Re: general sendmail.cf file ?

A. Clay Stephenson — Thu, 26 May 2005 11:39:57 GMT

You are correct although "values not configured in sendmail" might not be precisely correct. In some cases the commented parameters are set to default values.

Re: general sendmail.cf file ?

Debbie Fleith — Thu, 26 May 2005 11:41:56 GMT

How do I know what the default sendmail values are?

Re: general sendmail.cf file ?

Christopher Caldwell — Thu, 26 May 2005 15:24:04 GMT

Your best bet to determine defaults is to read a current version of the "Batbook" (sendmail by Costales and Allman). Each configurable parameter generally lists a default.

You can check documentation on http://sendmail.org. Some of the defaults are listed there.

Finally, you can look in the m4 files:
/usr/contrib/sendmail/usr/newconfig/etc/mail/cf/m4
some of the defaults are there, but take a couple of Tylenol before you try to figure out what's going on.

Re: general sendmail.cf file ?

Christopher Caldwell — Thu, 26 May 2005 15:36:31 GMT

BTW, as A. Clay Stephenson sort of suggested, the commented values are generally the defaults.

Re: general sendmail.cf file ?

Bill Hassell — Thu, 26 May 2005 21:45:17 GMT

Unfortunately, the sendmail.cf file format and options change with the version of sendmail. Even a patch to sendmail can change the requirements for sendmail.cf. In HP-UX, copies of the original config files are stored in /usr/newconfig/etc and if a patch introduces a new config file, the original file is left alone (preserving any customization) and the new version is stored in /usr/newconfig/etc/mail

It is imperative to log every change made to sendmail.cf. Unlike most config files, a diff of two .cf files is usually meaningless because some options get moved around.