/usr/sbin/sendmail specification proposal, draft 2
Here's a second run of the sendmail specification proposal for LSB
applications. Please review it. If anything doesn't sound right, feel
free to check it against your favorite sendmail or sendmail clone. We
should be careful to only specify options that work (or get ignored in a
safe way) for all common agents used as /usr/sbin/sendmail.
I only have access to running versions of sendmail and exim, so runtime
checking of these options and their behavior against qmail, smail,
etc. would be nice.
We may want to specify how unsupported options should or will be handled
by sendmail clones.
Changes:
* changed wording about preventing aliasing with leading backslash
* specify that messages must use RFC 822
* -F *may* require sufficient trust
* -f *will* require sufficient trust
* -F and -f are only used if there is no From: header
* -i is ignored when -bs is used
* -odf will be ignored if not supported
* dropped -oee option since we won't want applications to use it
* rewrote -t section
* multiple -v options can be used, perhaps even for more verbosity
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NAME
/usr/sbin/sendmail - an electronic mail transport agent
SYNOPSIS
sendmail [flags] [address ...]
DESCRIPTION
This program sends an email message to one or more recipients,
routing the message as necessary. This is not intended as a user
interface routine.
With no flags, sendmail reads its standard input up to an
end-of-file or a line consisting only of a single dot and sends a
copy of the message found there to all of the addresses listed.
It determines the network(s) to use based on the syntax and
contents of the addresses.
Some agents allow aliasing on the local system to be prevented
by preceding the address with a backslash.
The format of messages must be as defined in RFC 822.
OPTIONS
-bm Read mail from standard and deliver to the recipient
addresses. This is the default mode of operation.
-bp List information about messages currently in the input
mail queue.
-bs Use the SMTP protocol as described in RFC 821. (Read
SMTP commands on standard input and write SMTP responses
on standard output.)
-F fullname
Explicitly set the full name of the sender for incoming
mail unless the message already contains a From: message
header.
If the user running sendmail is not sufficiently trusted,
then the actual sender may be indicated in the message,
depending on the behavior of the agent.
-f name
Explicitly set the address of the sender for incoming
mail unless the message already contains a From: message
header.
If the user running sendmail is not sufficiently trusted,
then the actual sender will be indicated in the message.
-i Ignore dots alone on lines by themselves in incoming
messages. This option is ignored when -bs is used.
-odb If supported, deliver any mail in background. Otherwise,
this option is ignored.
-odf If supported, deliver any mail in foreground. Otherwise,
this option is ignored.
-oem or -em
Mail errors back to the sender (default).
-oep or -ep
Write errors to the standard error output.
-oeq or -eq
Do not send notification of errors to the sender. This
only works for mail delivered locally.
-oew or -ew
Write errors to the sender's terminal using the write(1)
command, if he is logged in. Otherwise, mail errors back
to the sender. If not supported, report errors in the
same manner as -oem.
-oi Same as -i.
-om This option means 'me too', indicating that the sender of
a message should receive a copy of the message if the
sender appears in an alias expansion. Ignored if aliases
are not supported.
-t Read the message to obtain recipients from the To:, Cc:,
and Bcc: headers in the message instead of from the
command arguments. If a Bcc: header is present, it is
removed from the message unless there is no To: or Cc:
header, in which case a Bcc: header with no data is
created, in accordance with RFC 822.
If there are any arguments, they specify addresses to
which the message is not to be delivered. That is, the
argument addresses are removed from the recipients list
obtained from the headers. Note: some agents implement
this behavior in reverse, adding addresses instead of
removing them. Others may disallow addresses in
argument list. Therefore, applications should not put
addresses in the argument list if -t is used.
This option is sometimes ignored when not in -bm mode
(the default).
-v Be more verbose. Additional -v options may make the
software increasingly verbose.
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