[BUGS] re-configure sendmail

[Jerahmy Pocott]

On 03/06/2008, at 3:34 PM, jonathan michaels wrote:

> greetings all
>
> i've been doing a lot of thinking about my mailer problems,
> some of them have got something to do with the dns problems
> that are plaging my so called "out of teh box, so easy to set up"
> etc, etc, its not even for a simple setup like mine things do
> and have gone realllly wrong.
>
> whinge over ..
>
> one of teh thing that i need to do is to change how sendmail
> works in this domain .. i looked in /etc/mail and found several
> sets of .cf (configuration files) and .mc (runtime files) i'm
> wondering which of teh ??3 ?? sets i need to change, i'm not
> comfortable reading teh makefile (but working on that issue)
>
> do i need to alter teh freebsd. set ?? (.mc .cf)
> or teh local.hostname.domainame.com.au set (.mc .cf)
> or just teh sendmail (.mc .cf) set

Generally you make changes to the host.name.mc files (when then  
'compile' into the .cf file).

If you run make as root in the /etc/mail directory it will create the  
local host name files with the default freebsd settings in them, if  
you make any changes to the .mc files, running make will 'compile'  
those changes into the .cf files. Sendmail reads /etc/mail/sendmail.cf  
which make won't touch, you need to then replace it with your own cf  
file.

Personally I use the .mc file, compile it to the .cf then make a few  
changes to the .cf by hand. It's all pretty complicated actually..  
Thankfully most of the time it 'just works' without making many  
changes..

So host.name.mc files are the ones you change, make turns them into  
host.name.cf files when you then move on top of the sendmail.cf files  
for them to take effect. You're not supposed to edit the .cf files  
directly, but I do..

Hope that helps!