Hello Sys Admins,
I received much VERY HELPFUL information about upgrading
sendmail from some knowledgeable people. Very many thanks
to these generous souls who took the time to respond with
valuable information and suggestions:
Steve VanDevender ( Email addresses for these )
Paul A. Sand ( can be found below. )
Jonathan Earle
Rob Hamm
Ian Mortimer
Richard N. Frank
I am going to include their responses below in this "summary"
because I think it will help many others (some of whom mailed
to me specifically requesting that I submit a summary). Don't
worry, this entire message is less than 300 lines long. My
original posting is at the very end of this message. If I
receive any more good info after posting this, I'll submit an
additional summary. Also, if I learn anything else
not covered in the responses below during my sendmail upgrade,
I will be sure to summarize that to you all.
Paul Youngblood
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*** Begin Responses to my query ***
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From: Steve VanDevender <stevev_at_hexadecimal.uoregon.edu>
Subject: Advice on upgrading sendmail
I am admittedly used to the intricacies of sendmail, but sendmail
8.8.8 is very easy to build for Digital UNIX. It pretty much
works out of the box. You should look over
sendmail-8.8.8/src/Makefiles/Makefile.OSF1 and make sure it uses
the options you want (I recommend eliminating -DNDBM from the
build flags so that it uses -DNEWDB instead). You will also need
to build a new configuration using a template in
sendmail-8.8.8/cf/cf; sendmail 8.8 will probably not work well
with your existing sendmail 5 sendmail.cf.
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From: Paul A Sand <pas_at_unh.edu>
Subject: Re: Advice on upgrading sendmail
It's not so bad. The code compiles cleanly, in my experience,
so the only major problem is coming up with a good sendmail.cf
file.
Unless you want to do something fancy, all you need is (typically) a
few lines in an .mc file which you process with the m4 program to get a
.cf file. The options and the process are pretty clearly explained in
the documentation that comes with the source.
My .mc file for my mail hub looks like this, and contains things you
may not need right away, or ever:
divert(-1)
#
# sendmail mc file for WILMOT
#
divert(0)
OSTYPE(osf1)
FEATURE(nouucp)
FEATURE(use_cw_file)
FEATURE(local_procmail)
FEATURE(genericstable, nis genericstable)
GENERICS_DOMAIN_FILE(`/etc/sendmail.cG')dnl
define(`LOCAL_MAILER_ARGS', procmail -t -Y -a $h -d $u)
define(`confMIN_QUEUE_AGE', `4h')
define(`confMAX_MESSAGE_SIZE', ``10485760'')
MASQUERADE_AS(cisunix.unh.edu)
MAILER(smtp)
MAILER(procmail)
OAnis:mail.aliases
Adding the relay-prevention rules requires adding a few more lines in
the .mc file; I'd do that after you get everything else working to your
satisfaction.
It might not be a bad idea to get the latest edition of the O'Reilly
sendmail book first. Good luck.
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From: Jonathan Earle <jearle_at_dmcs.dnd.ca>
Subject: Re: Advice on upgrading sendmail
Resent-From: horatio_at_dougout.dmcs.dnd.ca
I just did the same thing, except we're not running C2, and I upgraded to
8.8.7. Aside from a new location for sendmail.cf (/etc), the upgraded went
without a hitch. Just compile, drop it in, and get the net sendmail.cf up
to snuff for your site. I used the default one supplied (it's in the
source tree), and modified it for our use because I have no idea why all
the various m4 files exist, or how to use them to create a sendmail.cf
file. Easier to just use a good default setup. :)
good luck!
Jon
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From: Rob Hamm <hammr_at_ucfv.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Advice on upgrading sendmail
it is a big leap but well worth the effort. Once you do it once,
upgrades are very easy. Be aware it's like like 5.65 with a mailsetup
to run and some simple answers. 8.x takes great deal of time to absorb
the new formatting.
plan on a week of off and on time to figure out all the syntax.
make sure you keep your old binaries in case you want to revert back.
the hardest part is the cf file generation. Compiling is easy.
good luck!
Rob Hamm
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From: mortimer_at_physics.uq.edu.au
Subject: Re: Advice on upgrading sendmail
Hi Paul
The Digital Unix 4.0x m4 preprocessor is broken. If you're
going to build your configuration file from m4 macros you
will need either gnu m4 or m4 from Digital Unix 3.2x.
I've also heard that ndbm is broken in Digital Unix 4.0x
so you need to compile with the -DNEWDB flag and link
against -ldb.
Ian
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From: "richard n. frank" <rootrnf_at_wolfram.llnl.gov>
Subject: Re: Advice on upgrading sendmail
Paul,
I found it intimidating as well. It was actually easier than I thought it
would be (still hard the first time). I read all the readme's but when I
got around to making it, I did it with all the defaults. One gotcha is that
DU 4.0x doesn't have groff so the 887 help files won't get processed. The help
files are in the 887 set somewhere and can be copied to the appropriate place.
You will need to edit/create an /ect/banned-domains and /etc/aliases file
(it is optional what to put in them), and chmod 777 /var/spool/mqueue. The text
below was a guideline I used to distribute the new sendmail to other systems.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ps -ef ; then kill the sendmail process
i.e. kill 332
# find the pertinent sendmail files and copy them to oldsendmail as a backup
root_» find /usr -depth -name '*sendmail*' -ls
# rename this sendmail dir to oldsendmail...
/usr/var/adm/sendmail/sendmail.cf.pd
/usr/var/adm/sendmail/sendmail.cf
/usr/var/adm/sendmail/sendmail.st
/usr/var/adm/sendmail/#.mrg..sendmail.cf
/usr/var/adm/sendmail/sendmail.m4
/usr/var/adm/sendmail/sendmail.cf.orig
/usr/var/adm/sendmail
/usr/var/run/sendmail.pid
/usr/sbin/oldsendmail
i.e. mv /usr/var/adm/sendmail /usr/var/adm/oldsendmail
# rename to oldsendmail.cat
/usr/lib/nls/msg/en_US.ISO8859-1/sendmail.cat
# left link alone...
0 lrwxrwxrwx /usr/lib/sendmail -> ../sbin/sendmail
# This next stuff is for sending mail by emacs - I left it alone...
/usr/lib/emacs/lisp/sendmail.el
/usr/lib/emacs/lisp/sendmail.elc
# ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
# rename this to oldsendmail.*
/usr/share/lib/sendmail.hf
/usr/share/man/man4/sendmail.cf..4.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/sendmail.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/sendmail.m4.8.gz
i.e.
mv /usr/share/man/man8/sendmail.m4.8.gz \
/usr/share/man/man8/oldsendmail.m4.8.gz
copy the /usr/sbin/sendmail (887) to same location in OTHER_SYS
copy files from LOCAL_SYS::/etc to OTHER_SYS::/etc
sendmail_llnl.cf
sendmail.cf
sendmail.cw
banned-domains
aliases.both
aliases
(copied sendmail & these files to .../887_trans_files,
ftp these to remote machine and copy them out. sendmail
goes to /usr/sbin/ & others to /etc/. Change privs as
required)
modify sendmail.cw (contains hosts for which mail is accepted)=
OTHER_SYS
OTHER_SYS.llnl.gov
also chmod the mqueue for to 777
chmod 777 /var/spool/mqueue
(was 755)
start the sendmail daemon...
/sbin/init.d/sendmail start
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I would allow a full day to do this and get it working. There are several
pecularities to be encountered. I had some minimal remote advice available
but my guesses weren't too bad. There must be several of us in the group
who have done this that can help.
good luck,
rich frank
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*** ORIGINAL POSTING ***
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Date: Wed, 03 Dec 1997 10:58:37 -0600 (CST)
From: "Paul N. Youngblood" <youngbp_at_email.uah.edu>
To: alpha-osf-managers_at_ornl.gov
Subject: Advice on upgrading sendmail
Hello sys admins,
I am running DU 4.0B (patch kit 4) with C2 security on an
AlphaServer 2100. My sendmail version appears to be 5.65,
according to the output of "/usr/lib/sendmail -d0.11 -bp".
I've seen some very good information from the archives about
getting and using sendmail version 8.8.x to prevent your machine
from being used as a mail relay (for spam attacks). I would
like to upgrade my sendmail, but have never done it before.
Does anyone have any helpful hints, advice, or warnings for
me about upgrading my sendmail from 5.65 to 8.8.8 ???
It seems like a big leap to me. I would really appreciate
any advice you might have, and I will certainly summarize.
Thank you very much.
Paul Youngblood
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Received on Fri Dec 05 1997 - 04:12:49 NZDT