lynx sendmail from script 7343

The oldest Unix email I know of used this syntax to send mail:

but it actually invokes "sendmail" to do the delivery. Configuring sendmail is **dificult**. Postfix is somewhat easier. Most systems come with sendmail already installed.

The trouble is that the standard sendmail config supposes that your computer is a first-clbutt citizen of the Internet, with it's own properly registered dns hostname. Then sendmail would use DNS to figure out what computer to relay the mail to for the given recipient address.

Most people don't have a domain, and if sendmail tries to contact the recipient's mail server directly, that mail server will normally refuse to accept the mail. This is a kind-of anti-spam accountability thing.

A solution to this is to configure sendmail with a "smart host", which will be you ISP's smtp server. Then sendmail will relay all mails through that server, except when posting local mail, like when cron posts mail to root.

Newer sendmail installations have a system of configuration macros that make it somehwat easier to achieve the most common configuration types. Supposing that your distro has not changed the default setup too much, and that my distro the same, find the fileetc-mail-submit.mc, and add some lines like this:

define(`confDONTINITGROUPS', `True')dnl define(`confPIDFILE', `-var-run-sm-client.pid')dnl dnl define(`confDIRECTSUBMISSIONMODIFIERS',`C') +define(`SMARTHOST', `smtp.online.no') FEATURE(`usectfile')dnl +FEATURE(`masqueradeenvelope')dnl +MASQUERADEAS(`online.no')dnl dnl If you use IPv6 only, change 127.0.0.1 to IPv6:::1 FEATURE(`msp', `127.0.0.1')dnl

(The lines with '+' are the added lines. Omit the '+'. I am not sure about the rules for the order of these lines, my first attempt failed, and then I moved the MASQUERADE line above the "FEATURE(`msp'" and then it worked. I think all "define" lines shall be first, before the first FEATURE. The pre-existing lines may be similar or different in your installation. )

Do keep a backup of the file before any modifications, so you can revert any changes!

Notice that "online.no" is my ISP's domain. "smtp.online.no" is my ISP's outbound mail server.

Then, as root, do "cdetc-mail; make;etc-init.d-sendmail restart". It requires that you have "make" installed.

This will make many programs mail-capable, e.g. emacs. In the origninal Unix philosophy, any program could be mail-capable by invoking sendmail. Notice that when using a subsbreastute for sendmail, as postfix or qmail, thenusr-lib-sendmail is a link to the subsbreastute.

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I had a quick look at the manpage for mutt-muttrc, and I could not find how to configure mutt to bypbutt sendmail and use my ISP's smtp server directly. I have used mutt in the past, but I don't remember if I had it submit mail through sendmail, as is obviously its default. Otherwise it seems you can use mutt using the same syntax as mail.

Strange, I have something in the back of my mind nagging that it is possible to send mail without first configuring sendmail. At a time I used pine, could it be it?

I can't imagine you need fetchmail to *send* anything. Fetchmail is for contacting pop servers and download incoming mail.

Nice page, but it does not seem to address the problem that I address with the masquerade config above.

-Enrique