sendmail Cookbook

Consists of 117 sample solutions for configuring sendmail functions running on a Unix computer that system administrators customize for their specific needs. The tasks discussed include accepting mail from other hosts, passing outbound mail to a relay, masquerading with LDAP, routing mail to special purpose mailers, blocking spam with the access database, and patching to close security holes. The examples are based on sendmail 8.12 taken from Red Hat Linux 7.3 and 8.0 and Solaris 8.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

More often than not, the words sendmail configuration strike dread in the hearts of sendmail and system administrators--and not without reason. sendmail configuration languages are as complex as any other programming languages, but used much more infrequently--only when sendmail is installed or configured. The average system administrator doesn't get enough practice to truly master this inscrutable technology.

Fortunately, there's help. The sendmail Cookbook provides step-by-step solutions for the administrator who needs to solve configuration problems fast. Say you need to configure sendmail to relay mail for your clients without creating an open relay that will be abused by spammers. A recipe in the Cookbook shows you how to do just that. No more wading through pages of dense documentation and tutorials and creating your own custom solution--just go directly to the recipe that addresses your specific problem.

Each recipe in the sendmail Cookbook outlines a configuration problem, presents the configuration code that solves that problem, and then explains the code in detail. The discussion of the code is critical because it provides the insight you need to tweak the code for your own circumstances.

The sendmail Cookbook begins with an overview of the configuration languages, offering a quick how-to for downloading and compiling the sendmail distribution. Next, you'll find a baseline configuration recipe upon which many of the subsequent configurations, or recipes, in the book are based. Recipes in the following chapters stand on their own and offer solutions for properly configuring important sendmail functions such as:

Delivering and forwarding mail

Relaying

Masquerading

Routing mail

Controlling spam

Strong authentication

Securing the mail transport

Managing the queue

Securing sendmail

sendmail Cookbook is more than just a new approach to discussing sendmail configuration. The book also provides lots of new material that doesn't get much coverage elsewhere--STARTTLS and AUTH are given entire chapters, and LDAP is covered in recipes throughout the book. But most of all, this book is about saving time--something that most system administrators have in short supply. Pick up the sendmail Cookbook and say good-bye to sendmail dread.