howto modify sendmail.cf

[Brian McEntire]

Hi :)

We run sendmail on an HP-UX 11i server. I see /etc/mail/sendmail.cf but can't locate the m4 files used to generate it.

I may not need the m4 files. All I am really after is I want to prevent sendmail (running as a daemon) from trying to connect to the auth facility when hosts connect to deliver mail.

I've found this is possible if you add:
define(`confTO_IDENT', `0')dnl

To the sendmail.m4 file and regenerate the configuration.

Is there a simply way to accomplish the desired change by adding a line or changing a line in /etc/mail/sendmail.cf?

Thank you!

[Mel Burslan]

You can safely edit the file sendmail.cf, though with extreme caution against typos.

then you will need to restart sendmail by running

/sbin/init.d/sendmail stop
/sbin/init.d/sendmail start

for your changes to take effect

[Brian McEntire]

Thanks, but isn't the format of sendmail.cf different than the m4 macros?

Do you know what the equivalent sendmail.cf entry for this is?
define(`confTO_IDENT', `0')dnl

I don't think I can just paste that into the sendmail.cf file. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

That m4 syntax says to replace every occurence of "confTO_IDENT" with "0". The "dnl" says don't leave a blank line in the source for where the define itself was in the source.

If I understand what you are trying to do, you can just edit /etc/mail/sendmail.cf and change (and possibly uncomment)
#O Timeout.ident=30s
to
O Timeout.ident=0s

and then stop and restart sendmail.

[Brian McEntire]

Thank you, that did it!

[Steven E. Protter]

The format is different in the sendmail.cf file versus the macros.

I have a little m4 macro script here:

http://www.hpux.ws/buildmail.hpux.text

It is adopted to deal with the hpux way of implementing sendmail.

It allows me to change the m4 script instead of the .cf file, making my changes permanent and easier to manage.

To stop the sendmail daemon from running change the entry in /etc/rc.config.d/mailsvrs, the first variable to 0 (zero)

This will not prevent the sendmail binaries from sending mails, but it will make it difficult to get mail onto the server without shell/ssh access to the server.

SEP