18.3.1 What's Where in the Source

V8.8.6 sendmail unpacks by creating a directory, then unpacking into that directory. The directory name is the same as the compressed file name but with the first dot a dash instead:

% 

zcat sendmail.8.8.6.tar.Z | tar xvf -

 x sendmail-8.8.6/FAQ, 32312 bytes, 64 tape blocks x sendmail-8.8.6/KNOWNBUGS, 4714 bytes, 10 tape blocks x sendmail-8.8.6/Makefile, 1215 bytes, 3 tape blocks ... 
and so on

Inside the newly created directory you will find the full sendmail distribution:

% 

cd sendmail-8.8.6

 % 

ls

 FAQ             RELEASE_NOTES   mail.local      rmail KNOWNBUGS       cf              mailstats       smrsh Makefile        contrib         makemap         src READ_ME         doc             praliases       test

The READ_ME and RELEASE_NOTES files provide the most up-to-date information about changes, new features, and bug fixes. Read the documents in the doc directory. Also note that there are important comments in the src/READ_ME and cf/README files.

You will find almost everything you need to build sendmail in the src subdirectory. There are a few exceptions that we will cover in this chapter.

18.3.2 The makesendmail Script

The first step in compiling sendmail is to establish an object directory and a Makefile that is appropriate to your machine architecture and operating system. You do this by running the makesendmail script in the src directory:

% 

cd src

 % 

./makesendmail -n

 Configuration: os=SunOS, rel=4.1.4, rbase=4, arch=sun4, sfx= Creating obj.SunOS.4.1.4.sun4 using Makefile.SunOS Making dependencies in obj.SunOS.4.1.4.sun4 
 many more lines here
 %

Here, makesendmail found that ours was a sun4 machine, running the SunOS 4.1.4 release of UNIX. It created the working directory obj.SunOS.4.1.4.sun4 , set up symbolic links to all the source files in that directory, and copied a Makefile there. The -n switch [3] prevents make from actually building sendmail . Note that, except for the -m switch, all command-line arguments following the makesendmail are passed to make (1) as its own command-line arguments.

[3] As an alternative, the -m command-line switch causes makesendmail to print the name of your Makefile without actually creating the obj.* subdirectory.

The makesendmail script knows how to build sendmail on many versions of UNIX, including offshoots such as OSF/1 and NextStep. In the unlikely case that your operating system is not supported, you will see an error message instead of the above output:

Configuration: os=EX/Unix, rel=1, rbase=1, arch=sun4, sfx= Cannot determine how to support sun4.EX/Unix.1

Here, an experimental version of UNIX called EX/Unix on a sun4 computer was unrecognized by the makesendmail script. Porting sendmail to new operating systems is really beyond the scope of this book. But we offer a complete listing of #define macros in Section 18.8 at the end of this chapter, and that, as well as much of the tuning that we discuss here, can also be germane to porting.

18.3.3 What to Tune

Before you let makesendmail run to completion, you may need to tune three of sendmail 's files for your site:

Makefile/ *

Specifies where to install the binaries and how to compile them. Makefile is normally the only file you will have to modify if you are running an already supported operating system

conf.h

Specifies maximum sizes and other properties that are tunable for porting:

conf.c

Specifies C language code to support specific and unusual needs. Tunable items in conf.c include the checkcompat () routine (see Chapter 20, The checkcompat() Cookbook ) and default header behavior (see Section 35.5, "Header Behavior in conf.c" ).