What can I do with sendmail?

**MasonMcD** · September 28th, 2000, 07:50 PM

How do I install it and get it up and running? I've gone to http://www.sendmail.org, but it doesn't cover the basics, like how to turn it on, just compiling and configuring.

What can I do with it? A URL would be fine if you don't want to get into the nitty gritty. But I'd like to, actually.

**CyBeR** · September 29th, 2000, 03:22 PM

you can send mail with it

You don't need to have it running unless you want to use it as an SMTP server.
You can just select "sendmail" in the Mail preferences and it wuill do it's job fine

**MasonMcD** · September 29th, 2000, 03:32 PM

Doesn't sendmail have to be started up or something? It doesn't seem to work if I just check the radio button.

**CyBeR** · September 30th, 2000, 05:33 AM

I does work
Send a small email to yourself and you will see
The reason you probably don't think it works is because you don's see a "sending mail" type thing.

**dnomura** · October 2nd, 2000, 12:45 PM

Everything you need is located on sendmail.org (you just have to wade through it) or there are links there pointing you to various other resources online. Also, don't forget to check out comp.mail.sendmail.
Finally, you may consider getting Eric Allman's "Bat" book.

**marmoset** · October 8th, 2000, 09:11 AM

Okay, I've got

MAILSERVER=-YES-

set in /etc/hostconfig. That didn't work,
so when I try to start it manually by
running the startup script at

/System/Library/StartupItems/Sendmail/Sendmail

it craps out with the following error:

[samantha:Library/StartupItems/Sendmail] root# 451 4.0.0 /etc/mail/sendmail.cf: line 81: fileclass: cannot open /etc/mail/local-host-names: Group writable directory

I've tried changing permission modes on /etc/mail and the files within, all to no effect.

I'm stumped. Does anyone else have an idea?

**ericmurphy** · October 16th, 2000, 04:02 PM

Is it possible to use Sendmail to RECEIVE mail? What I would like to do is set up my domain with a web sever (Apache) and an incoming mail server, so that mail sent to my domain would end up on my Mac, and other people could use my machine as their incoming mail server.

I've had no trouble using Sendmail instead of a SMTP server, although it doesn't seem that reliable. I've tried going through the logs to discover if messages I'm sending with Sendmail are not getting to their recipients because of something wrong with Sendmail, or something wrong with the destination server. The problem seems to mostly involve mail sent to AOL (which is IMAP, I believe), and web-based e-mail services like Yahoo and Hotmail (which I think may also be IMAP). Anyone have any idea about this?

**phule** · October 16th, 2000, 04:27 PM

Originally posted by MasonMcD

How do I install it and get it up and running? I've gone to http://www.sendmail.org, but it doesn't cover the basics, like how to turn it on, just compiling and configuring.

What can I do with it? A URL would be fine if you don't want to get into the nitty gritty. But I'd like to, actually.

There's a secure replacement for sendmail called qmail. It can be found, naturally, at http://www.qmail.org