mail revisited

[Vernon Schryver]

The /usr/lib/sendmail.cf in all currently shipping IRIS releases is based
on a snapshot of what was running on sgi.sgi.com some time ago.  At that
time, we were sending more mail using UUCP over XNS than SMTP.  That
sendmail.cf will still work provided canonical names of hosts do not
include dots (.).  The trouble with dots is that sometimes you want to
treat them as letters as in the hostname <foo.bar.com> and sometimes as
sendmail "tokens" as in the separater between the hostname and domain name
in <foo><.><bar.com>.

In 3.2, we will be shipping a new but temporary sendmail.cf.  It is based
on a more recent snapshot of what is on sgi.sgi.com.  It is temporary
because our sendmail still does not handle MX records.  RealSoonNow I'll
merge 5.61 and other stuff.  Impatent hackers who do not care about
pathalias routing, YP aliases, and other minor hassles could get 5.61 from
one of the public places.  It ports easily, provided one remembers
-I/usr/include/bsd and -lbsd.

The delivery program of choice is /bin/mail.  A long time ago we added a
minor taste of BSD /bin/mail to SVR3 /bin/mail.  The arguments for the
local mailer are correct in my opinion.  You are of course welcome to
change them to something else.

You've noticed that sgi.sgi.com answers on port 25.  That is because we use
sendmail internally.  We currently have multiple YP domains hooked together
with DNS.  Mail is transported with SMTP and UUCP.

The version number on sgi.sgi.com's sendmail.cf changes when I remember to
change it, about once every 100 changes to the rest of sendmail.cf, or
equivalently about once a week.  Someday, either it will be perfect or I'll
be dead and gone--bet on the latter.

As a special, introductory offer to the first 17 callers, a genuine
simulated gold-plated copy of the 3.2 sendmail.cf can be found in the
public ftp directory on sgi.sgi.com in pub/src/sendmail.cf.  The hotline
may not be familiar with it yet, so be gentle with any bug reports.

Unfortunately, I cannot offer any individual help.  The hotline has the
franchise on that part of the business.

Vernon Schryver
Silicon Graphics
vjs at sgi.com