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A Brief History of Mail

E-Mail was born in the decade before the ARPANET, by users on time sharing systems who wished to leave messages for one another. The earliest e-mail systems were fairly primitive affairs; each user's mailbox was a simple file, readable only by that user, to which a mail program would append messages. There were no mail reader programs, users simply waded through the raw text of their mailboxes, and so large mailboxes quickly became chaotic. The first of these systems was MAILBOX, and it was installed on the Compatible Time Sharing System, at MIT. Although comparatively crude, mail was so useful that it proliferated quickly.

The geographical reach of the ARPANET added the next piece to the e-mail puzzle. The first e-mail delivery to occur between two networked machines occurred in 1972. Ray Tomlinson, then an engineer at BBN delivered a mail message by using some inventive hacking to copy a mail message across a network link connecting two DEC PDP-10's. It was Ray Tomlinson, who, looking down at his keyboard, decided to use the '@' symbol to separate the user from the host part of an e-mail address.

By early 1973, three-quarters of the traffic on the ARPANET was e-mail. There were no mail specific protocols in place then - mail was piggybacked over FTP, which had commands specific to mail transfer. Mail delivery and tracking information (and pretty much everything else) was included in the mail headers, and one of the major problems with mail transfer was that there were no defined header standards. Mail programs that disagreed over formats would often refuse to talk to one another. For example, the famous '@' symbol was used as a line kill command on Multics systems, and Multics users tended to be somewhat 'mail-challenged' as a result of this...

The first major attempt to standardize mail headers resulted in RFC 680, which cleared up some of the chaos surrounding mail at the time. In 1977, RFC 680 was succeeded by RFC 724, which was greeted with a lukewarm reception from the ARPANET community. RFC 724 was revised soon after, and became RFC 733, but this still did little to stem the arguments surrounding mail header formats.

At the time of most of these events, TCP/IP had not yet appeared. The ARPANET used NCP as its core network protocol, and was utterly unable to communicate with any of the other packet networks in existence at the time. Into this environment, Eric Allman released delivermail, the ancestor of sendmail. Delivermail dealt with ARPANET mail using FTP over NCP, and its configuration was compiled into the program. The first version of delivermail shipped with 4.0 and 4.1 BSD in 1979.

As these events were taking place, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn were working on a method to connect together the many packet networks in existence. Their idea, which was started around 1973 was to create a "network of networks", and the results of their work would become the TCP/IP protocol suite. The ARPANET made its official transition to TCP/IP in 1982. The widespread implementation of TCP/IP paved the way for the removal of mail services from the FTP protocol, and the creation of a new protocol : SMTP. Shortly after this, in 1986, the widespread adoption of DNS as a replacement for the old HOSTS file provided a way to extend the functionality of e-mail systems.

In response to the new SMTP protocol, and the functionality provided by DNS, Eric Allman evolved his delivermail program into sendmail. The first public version of sendmail shipped with 4.1c BSD. The new protocols extended sendmail's reach beyond the ARPANET, onto the many other packet networks comprising the nascent Internet.

Eric Allman stopped the development of sendmail in 1982, and did not go back to it until 1990. In 1998, Sendmail Inc. was formed, to create a commercial version of sendmail. Profits from the sale of this version would allow Allman to give sendmail the time it required, and the core distribution would remain free, allowing everyone to benefit from the new code. At the time of writing, the latest version of Sendmail is 8.9.2.

[Preface to O'Reilly Sendmail book]

The sendmail program was originally written by Eric Allman while he was a student and staff member at the University of California at Berkeley. At the time, one campus machine (Ingres) was connected to the ARPAnet, and was home to the INGRES project where Eric was working. Another machine (Ernie CoVax) was home to the Berkeley UNIX project and had recently started using UUCP. These machines (as well as several others on campus) were connected by a low-cost network built by Eric Schmidt, called BerkNet. Software existed to move mail within ARPAnet, within UUCP, and within BerkNet, but none yet existed to move mail between these three networks.

A sudden increase in protocol types, coupled with the anticipation of an explosion in the number of networks, motivated Eric to write delivermail - the precursor to sendmail. The delivermail program was shipped in 1979 with 4.0 and 4.1 BSD UNIX. Unfortunately, delivermail was not flexible enough to handle the changes in mail routing requirements that actually occurred. Perhaps its greatest weakness was that its configuration was compiled-in.

In 1980, ARPAnet began converting from NCP (Network Control Protocol) to TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). This change increased the number of possible hosts from 256 to over one billion. Another change converted from a "flat" host-name space (like MIT-XX) into a hierarchical name space (like XX.MIT.EDU). Prior to these changes, mail was transported using the ftp protocol (File Transfer Protocol). Afterward, a new protocol was developed for transporting mail called SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). These developments were not instantaneous. Some networks continued to run NCP years after most others switched to TCP. SMTP itself underwent many revisions before finally settling into its present form.

Responding to these and other changes, Eric evolved delivermail into sendmail. To ensure that messages transferred between networks would obey the conventions required by those networks, Eric took a "liberal" approach - modifying address information to conform, rather than rejecting it. At the time, for example, UUCP mail often had no headers at all, so sendmail had to create them from scratch.

The first sendmail program was shipped with 4.1c BSD (the first version of Berkeley UNIX to include TCP/IP). From that first release to the present, [1] Eric has continued to enhance sendmail, first at UC Berkeley, then at Britton Lee, then back at UC Berkeley, and now with InReference Inc. The current version of sendmail is 8.x (or V8 for short). V8 is a major rewrite that includes many bug fixes and significant enhancements.

[1] With one long gap between 1982 and 1990.

But Eric wasn't the only one working on sendmail. In 1987, Lennart Lovstrand of the University of Linköping, Sweden, developed the IDA enhancements to BSD sendmail Version 5. IDA (which stands for "Institutionen för Datavetenskap") injected a number of improvements into sendmail (such as support for dbm files and separate rewriting of headers and envelopes) and fixed a number of bugs. As the '90s approached, two offspring of IDA appeared.

Neil Rickert (Northern Illinois University) and Paul Pomes (The University of Illinois) took over maintenance of IDA sendmail. With contributions from around the world, their version (UIUC IDA) represents a continuation of the work begun by Lennart Lovstrand. Neil focused on fixing and enhancing the configuration files into their current m4-based form. Paul maintained the code, continually adding enhancements and fixing bugs. In general, their version was large, ambitious, and highly portable. It succeeded in solving many complex mail routing problems.

A variation on IDA sendmail was also developed by Paul Vixie (while at Digital Equipment Corporation). Called KJS (for King James sendmail), it was a more conservative outgrowth of Lennart Lovstrand's last IDA release. The focus of KJS was on code improvement rather than changes to configuration files.

In addition to these major offshoots, many vendors have modified sendmail to suit their particular needs. Sun Microsystems made many modifications and enhancements to sendmail, including support for nis and nisplus maps. Hewlett Packard also contributed many fine enhancements including 8BITMIME support.

This explosion of sendmail versions has led to a great deal of confusion. Solutions to problems that work for one version of sendmail fail miserably with others. Beyond this, configuration files are not portable, and some features cannot be shared.

In 1994, Eric began work on V8.7 sendmail. The first major departure from tradition in years, V8.7 introduces multicharacter option and macro names, new interactive commands to use with -bt mode, and fixes many of the problems and limitations of earlier releases.

But, more important, V8.7 has officially adopted most of the good features from IDA, KJS, Sun, and HP's sendmail, and kept abreast of the latest standards from the Internet Engineering Task Force.

In 1996, Eric began work on V8.8 sendmail. This release continued the trend begun with V8.7, adding many requested new features and options, and tightening security. Since V8.8 is now the official release of sendmail, it is the one solely documented in this book.

SENDMAIL — An Internetwork Mail Router by Allman, Eric (1983)

Sendmail - An Internetwork Mail Router. Distributed Processing: Concepts and Structures, A.L. Ananda and B. Srinivasan, IEEE Computer Society Press. [Boissevain 1974] J. Boissevain. Friends of Friends - Networks, Manipulators, and Coalitions .

Routing mail through a heterogenous internet presents many new problems. Among the worst of these is that of address mapping. Historically, this has been handled on an ad hoc basis. However, this approach has become unmanageable as internets grow. Sendmail acts a unified "post office " to which all mail can be submitted. Address interpretation is controlled by a production system, which can parse both domain-based addressing and oldstyle ad hoc addresses. The production system is powerful enough to rewrite addresses in the message header to conform to the standards of a number of common target networks, including old (NCP/RFC733) Arpanet, new (TCP/RFC822) Arpanet, UUCP, and Phonenet. Sendmail also implements an SMTP server, message queueing, and aliasing. Sendmail implements a general internetwork mail routing facility, featuring aliasing and forwarding, automatic routing to network gateways, and flexible configuration. In a simple network, each node has an address, and resources can be identified with a host-resource pair; in particular, the mail system can refer to users using a host-username pair. Host names and numbers have to be administered by a central authority, but usernames can be assigned locally to each host.
 

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

                        Eric Allman*
             University of California, Berkeley
                      Mammoth Project

                          ABSTRACT

    Routing  mail  through  a heterogenous internet pre-
    sents many new problems.  Among the worst  of  these
    is  that of address mapping.  Historically, this has
    been handled on an ad hoc basis.  However, this  ap-
    proach has become unmanageable as internets grow.

    Sendmail  acts  a unified "post office" to which all
    mail can be submitted.   Address  interpretation  is
    controlled  by  a production system, which can parse
    both domain-based addressing and  old-style  ad  hoc
    addresses.  The production system is powerful enough
    to rewrite addresses in the message header  to  con-
    form  to  the standards of a number of common target
    networks, including old  (NCP/RFC733)  Arpanet,  new
    (TCP/RFC822)  Arpanet, UUCP, and Phonenet.  Sendmail
    also implements an SMTP  server,  message  queueing,
    and aliasing.

     Sendmail implements a general internetwork mail routing

facility, featuring aliasing and forwarding, automatic rout-

ing to network gateways, and flexible configuration.

     In  a  simple  network,  each  node has an address, and

resources can be identified with a  host-resource  pair;  in
____________________
   *A  considerable  part  of this work was done while under
the employ of the INGRES Project at the University of  Cali-
fornia at Berkeley and at Britton Lee.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router              SMM:9-1

SMM:9-2              SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

particular, the mail system can refer to users using a host-

username pair.  Host names and numbers have to  be  adminis-

tered  by a central authority, but usernames can be assigned

locally to each host.

     In an internet, multiple networks with different  char-

acterstics and managements must communicate.  In particular,

the syntax and semantics of resource identification  change.

Certain  special  cases  can  be handled trivially by ad hoc

techniques, such as  providing  network  names  that  appear

local  to  hosts  on other networks, as with the Ethernet at

Xerox PARC.  However,  the general case  is  extremely  com-

plex.   For  example,  some  networks require point-to-point

routing, which simplifies the database update problem  since

only  adjacent hosts must be entered into the system tables,

while others use end-to-end addressing.  Some networks use a

left-associative  syntax  and others use a right-associative

syntax, causing ambiguity in mixed addresses.

     Internet standards seek to  eliminate  these  problems.

Initially,  these  proposed  expanding  the address pairs to

address triples, consisting  of  {network,  host,  resource}

triples.   Network  numbers must be universally agreed upon,

and hosts can be assigned  locally  on  each  network.   The

user-level  presentation  was  quickly  expanded  to address

domains, comprised of a local resource identification and  a

hierarchical domain specification with a common static root.

The domain technique separates the issue of physical  versus

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router              SMM:9-3

logical  addressing.   For  example,  an address of the form

"[email protected]" describes only the logical organi-

zation of the address space.

     Sendmail is intended to help bridge the gap between the

totally ad hoc world of networks that know nothing  of  each

other and the clean, tightly-coupled world of unique network

numbers.  It can  accept  old  arbitrary  address  syntaxes,

resolving ambiguities using heuristics specified by the sys-

tem administrator, as well as domain-based  addressing.   It

helps  guide  the conversion of message formats between dis-

parate networks.  In short, sendmail is designed to assist a

graceful  transition  to  consistent internetwork addressing

schemes.

     Section 1 discusses  the  design  goals  for  sendmail.

Section  2  gives  an overview of the basic functions of the

system.  In section 3, details of usage are discussed.  Sec-

tion 4 compares sendmail to other internet mail routers, and

an evaluation of sendmail is given in section  5,  including

future plans.

1.  DESIGN GOALS

        Design goals for sendmail include:

    (1)   Compatibility  with  the  existing  mail programs,

          including Bell version 6 mail, Bell version 7 mail

          [UNIX83],  Berkeley  Mail [Shoens79], BerkNet mail

SMM:9-4              SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

          [Schmidt79], and hopefully UUCP  mail  [Nowitz78a,

          Nowitz78b].   ARPANET  mail [Crocker77a, Postel77]

          was also required.

    (2)   Reliability, in the  sense  of  guaranteeing  that

          every  message  is correctly delivered or at least

          brought to the attention of a  human  for  correct

          disposal;  no  message  should  ever be completely

          lost.  This goal was considered essential  because

          of  the  emphasis  on mail in our environment.  It

          has turned out to be one of the hardest  goals  to

          satisfy, especially in the face of the many anoma-

          lous message formats produced by  various  ARPANET

          sites.    For   example,  certain  sites  generate

          improperly formated addresses, occasionally  caus-

          ing error-message loops.  Some hosts use blanks in

          names, causing problems with  UNIX  mail  programs

          that  assume  that  an  address  is one word.  The

          semantics of some fields are interpreted  slightly

          differently  by  different sites.  In summary, the

          obscure features  of  the  ARPANET  mail  protocol

          really  are used and are difficult to support, but

          must be supported.

    (3)   Existing software to do actual delivery should  be

          used whenever possible.  This goal derives as much

          from political  and  practical  considerations  as

          technical.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router              SMM:9-5

    (4)   Easy  expansion  to  fairly  complex environments,

          including multiple connections to a single network

          type  (such  as  with  multiple UUCP or Ether nets

          [Metcalfe76]).  This goal  requires  consideration

          of  the contents of an address as well as its syn-

          tax in order to determine which  gateway  to  use.

          For  example,  the  ARPANET is bringing up the TCP

          protocol to replace the old NCP protocol.  No host

          at Berkeley runs both TCP and NCP, so it is neces-

          sary to look at the ARPANET host name to determine

          whether  to  route mail to an NCP gateway or a TCP

          gateway.

    (5)   Configuration should  not  be  compiled  into  the

          code.  A single compiled program should be able to

          run as is at any site (barring such basic  changes

          as the CPU type or the operating system).  We have

          found this seemingly unimportant goal to be criti-

          cal  in  real  life.   Besides the simple problems

          that occur when any program gets recompiled  in  a

          different environment, many sites like to "fiddle"

          with anything that they will be  recompiling  any-

          way.

    (6)   Sendmail  must be able to let various groups main-

          tain their own mailing lists, and let  individuals

          specify  their  own  forwarding, without modifying

          the system alias file.

SMM:9-6              SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

    (7)   Each user should be able to specify  which  mailer

          to  execute  to  process  mail being delivered for

          him.  This feature allows users who are using spe-

          cialized  mailers  that  use a different format to

          build their environment without changing the  sys-

          tem,  and  facilitates specialized functions (such

          as returning an "I am on vacation" message).

    (8)   Network traffic should be  minimized  by  batching

          addresses to a single host where possible, without

          assistance from the user.

        These goals motivated the  architecture  illustrated

   in  figure  1.  The user interacts with a mail generating

____________________________________________________________

          +---------+   +---------+   +---------+
          | sender1 |   | sender2 |   | sender3 |
          +---------+   +---------+   +---------+
               |       |             |
               +----------+  +  +----------+
                    |  |  |
                    v  v  v
                      +-------------+
                      |   sendmail  |
                      +-------------+
                    |  |  |
               +----------+  +  +----------+
               |       |             |
               v             v             v
          +---------+   +---------+   +---------+
          | mailer1 |   | mailer2 |   | mailer3 |
          +---------+   +---------+   +---------+

           Figure 1 -- Sendmail System Structure.
____________________________________________________________

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router              SMM:9-7

   and sending program.  When the mail is created, the  gen-

   erator  calls  sendmail,  which routes the message to the

   correct mailer(s).  Since some of the senders may be net-

   work  servers  and  some  of  the  mailers may be network

   clients, sendmail may be used as an internet  mail  gate-

   way.

2.  OVERVIEW

   2.1.  System Organization

           Sendmail  neither  interfaces  with  the user nor

      does actual mail delivery.  Rather, it collects a mes-

      sage  generated by a user interface program (UIP) such

      as Berkeley Mail, MS [Crocker77b], or  MH  [Borden79],

      edits  the message as required by the destination net-

      work, and calls appropriate mailers to do mail  deliv-

      ery or queueing for network transmission1.  This  dis-

      cipline allows the insertion of new mailers at minimum

      cost.  In this sense sendmail  resembles  the  Message

      Processing Module (MPM) of [Postel79b].

   2.2.  Interfaces to the Outside World

           There  are  three  ways  sendmail can communicate

      with the outside world, both in receiving and in send-

      ing  mail.   These  are  using  the  conventional UNIX
____________________
   1except  when  mailing  to a file, when sendmail does the
delivery directly.

SMM:9-8              SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

      argument vector/return status, speaking  SMTP  over  a

      pair  of  UNIX pipes, and speaking SMTP over an inter-

      process(or) channel.

      2.2.1.  Argument vector/exit status

              This technique is the standard UNIX method for

         communicating  with the process.  A list of recipi-

         ents is sent in the argument vector, and  the  mes-

         sage  body is sent on the standard input.  Anything

         that the mailer prints is simply collected and sent

         back to the sender if there were any problems.  The

         exit status from the mailer is collected after  the

         message  is  sent,  and  a diagnostic is printed if

         appropriate.

      2.2.2.  SMTP over pipes

              The SMTP protocol [Postel82] can  be  used  to

         run  an  interactive  lock-step  interface with the

         mailer.  A subprocess  is  still  created,  but  no

         recipient  addresses  are  passed to the mailer via

         the argument list.  Instead, they are passed one at

         a  time  in commands sent to the processes standard

         input.  Anything appearing on the  standard  output

         must be a reply code in a special format.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router              SMM:9-9

      2.2.3.  SMTP over an IPC connection

              This  technique  is  similar  to  the previous

         technique, except that it uses a 4.2bsd IPC channel

         [UNIX83].  This method is exceptionally flexible in

         that  the  mailer  need  not  reside  on  the  same

         machine.  It is normally used to connect to a send-

         mail process on another machine.

   2.3.  Operational Description

           When a sender wants to send a message, it  issues

      a  request  to sendmail using one of the three methods

      described above.  Sendmail operates  in  two  distinct

      phases.   In  the  first phase, it collects and stores

      the message.  In the second  phase,  message  delivery

      occurs.  If there were errors during processing during

      the second phase, sendmail creates and returns  a  new

      message  describing the error and/or returns an status

      code telling what went wrong.

      2.3.1.  Argument processing and address parsing

              If sendmail is called using  one  of  the  two

         subprocess  techniques,  the  arguments  are  first

         scanned and option  specifications  are  processed.

         Recipient addresses are then collected, either from

         the command line or from the SMTP RCPT command, and

         a  list  of  recipients  is  created.   Aliases are

SMM:9-10             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

         expanded at this step, including mailing lists.  As

         much  validation  as  possible  of the addresses is

         done at this step: syntax  is  checked,  and  local

         addresses  are  verified,  but detailed checking of

         host names and addresses is deferred  until  deliv-

         ery.   Forwarding  is  also  performed as the local

         addresses are verified.

              Sendmail appends each address to the recipient

         list after parsing.  When a name is aliased or for-

         warded, the old name is retained in the list, and a

         flag is set that tells the delivery phase to ignore

         this recipient.  This list is kept free from dupli-

         cates,  preventing  alias  loops and duplicate mes-

         sages deliverd to  the  same  recipient,  as  might

         occur if a person is in two groups.

      2.3.2.  Message collection

              Sendmail  then collects the message.  The mes-

         sage should have a header  at  the  beginning.   No

         formatting  requirements are imposed on the message

         except that they  must  be  lines  of  text  (i.e.,

         binary  data is not allowed).  The header is parsed

         and stored in memory, and the body of  the  message

         is saved in a temporary file.

              To simplify the program interface, the message

         is collected even if no addresses were valid.   The

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-11

         message will be returned with an error.

      2.3.3.  Message delivery

              For each unique mailer and host in the recipi-

         ent list, sendmail calls  the  appropriate  mailer.

         Each mailer invocation sends to all users receiving

         the message on one host.  Mailers that only  accept

         one recipient at a time are handled properly.

              The message is sent to the mailer using one of

         the same three interfaces used to submit a  message

         to sendmail.  Each copy of the message is prepended

         by a customized header.  The mailer status code  is

         caught  and  checked,  and a suitable error message

         given as appropriate.  The exit code  must  conform

         to a system standard or a generic message ("Service

         unavailable") is given.

      2.3.4.  Queueing for retransmission

              If the mailer returned an  status  that  indi-

         cated  that  it  might  be  able to handle the mail

         later, sendmail will queue the mail and  try  again

         later.

      2.3.5.  Return to sender

              If  errors  occur  during processing, sendmail

         returns   the   message   to   the    sender    for

SMM:9-12             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

         retransmission.   The  letter can be mailed back or

         written in the file "dead.letter" in  the  sender's

         home directory2.

   2.4.  Message Header Editing

           Certain editing  of  the  message  header  occurs

      automatically.   Header  lines  can  be inserted under

      control of the configuration file.  Some lines can  be

      merged; for example, a "From:" line and a "Full-name:"

      line can be merged under certain circumstances.

   2.5.  Configuration File

           Almost all configuration information is  read  at

      runtime from an ASCII file, encoding macro definitions

      (defining the value of macros used internally), header

      declarations  (telling  sendmail  the format of header

      lines that it will process specially, i.e., lines that

      it  will  add or reformat), mailer definitions (giving

      information such as the location  and  characteristics

      of  each  mailer), and address rewriting rules (a lim-

      ited production system to rewrite addresses  which  is

      used to parse and rewrite the addresses).

____________________
   2Obviously, if the site giving the error is not the orig-
inating site, the only reasonable option is to mail back  to
the sender.  Also, there are many more error disposition op-
tions, but they only effect the error message -- the "return
to  sender"  function  is always handled in one of these two
ways.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-13

           To  improve performance when reading the configu-

      ration file, a memory image  can  be  provided.   This

      provides  a "compiled" form of the configuration file.

3.  USAGE AND IMPLEMENTATION

   3.1.  Arguments

           Arguments may be flags and addresses.  Flags  set

      various processing options.  Following flag arguments,

      address arguments may be given, unless we are  running

      in  SMTP  mode.  Addresses follow the syntax in RFC822

      [Crocker82] for ARPANET address  formats.   In  brief,

      the format is:

       (1)   Anything  in  parentheses  is thrown away (as a

             comment).

       (2)   Anything in angle brackets ("<>") is  preferred

             over  anything  else.  This rule implements the

             ARPANET standard that addresses of the form

                 user name <machine-address>

             will send to the  electronic  "machine-address"

             rather than the human "user name."

       (3)   Double  quotes ( " ) quote phrases; backslashes

             quote characters.  Backslashes are more  power-

             ful  in  that they will cause otherwise equiva-

             lent phrases  to  compare  differently  --  for

SMM:9-14             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

             example,  user  and  "user" are equivalent, but

             \user is different from either of them.

           Parentheses, angle brackets,  and  double  quotes

      must  be  properly balanced and nested.  The rewriting

      rules control remaining parsing3.

   3.2.  Mail to Files and Programs

           Files and programs are legitimate message recipi-

      ents.  Files provide  archival  storage  of  messages,

      useful  for  project administration and history.  Pro-

      grams are useful as recipients in a variety of  situa-

      tions, for example, to maintain a public repository of

      systems messages (such as the Berkeley  msgs  program,

      or the MARS system [Sattley78]).

           Any  address  passing through the initial parsing

      algorithm as a local address (i.e, not appearing to be

      a valid address for another mailer) is scanned for two

      special cases.  If prefixed by a  vertical  bar  ("|")

      the  rest  of the address is processed as a shell com-

      mand.  If the user name begins with a slash mark ("/")

      the  name  is  used as a file name, instead of a login

      name.

____________________
   3Disclaimer:  Some  special  processing  is  done   after
rewriting local names; see below.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-15

           Files that have setuid or setgid bits set but  no

      execute  bits  set have those bits honored if sendmail

      is running as root.

   3.3.  Aliasing, Forwarding, Inclusion

           Sendmail  reroutes  mail  three  ways.   Aliasing

      applies  system  wide.  Forwarding allows each user to

      reroute  incoming  mail  destined  for  that  account.

      Inclusion  directs  sendmail to read a file for a list

      of addresses, and is normally used in conjunction with

      aliasing.

      3.3.1.  Aliasing

              Aliasing  maps  names to address lists using a

         system-wide file.  This file is  indexed  to  speed

         access.  Only names that parse as local are allowed

         as aliases; this guarantees  a  unique  key  (since

         there are no nicknames for the local host).

      3.3.2.  Forwarding

              After  aliasing, recipients that are local and

         valid are checked for the existence of a ".forward"

         file  in  their  home directory.  If it exists, the

         message is not sent to that user, but rather to the

         list  of  users in that file.  Often this list will

         contain only one address, and the feature  will  be

         used for network mail forwarding.

SMM:9-16             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

              Forwarding  also  permits  a user to specify a

         private incoming mailer.  For  example,  forwarding

         to:

             "|/usr/local/newmail myname"

         will use a different incoming mailer.

      3.3.3.  Inclusion

              Inclusion is specified in RFC 733 [Crocker77a]

         syntax:

             :Include: pathname

         An address of this form reads the file specified by

         pathname  and  sends  to  all  users listed in that

         file.

              The intent is not to  support  direct  use  of

         this feature, but rather to use this as a subset of

         aliasing.  For example, an alias of the form:

             project: :include:/usr/project/userlist

         is a method of letting a project maintain a mailing

         list  without  interaction with the system adminis-

         tration, even if the alias file is protected.

              It is not necessary to rebuild  the  index  on

         the   alias  database  when  a  :include:  list  is

         changed.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-17

   3.4.  Message Collection

           Once all recipient addresses are parsed and veri-

      fied,  the message is collected.  The message comes in

      two parts: a message header and a message body,  sepa-

      rated by a blank line.

           The  header  is formatted as a series of lines of

      the form

               field-name: field-value

      Field-value can be split across lines by starting  the

      following  lines  with  a space or a tab.  Some header

      fields have special internal meaning, and have  appro-

      priate  special  processing.  Other headers are simply

      passed through.  Some header fields may be added auto-

      matically, such as time stamps.

           The  body  is a series of text lines.  It is com-

      pletely uninterpreted and untouched, except that lines

      beginning  with a dot have the dot doubled when trans-

      mitted over  an  SMTP  channel.   This  extra  dot  is

      stripped by the receiver.

   3.5.  Message Delivery

           The  send  queue  is  ordered  by  receiving host

      before transmission  to  implement  message  batching.

      Each address is marked as it is sent so rescanning the

SMM:9-18             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

      list is safe.  An argument list is built as  the  scan

      proceeds.   Mail  to files is detected during the scan

      of the send list.  The interface to the mailer is per-

      formed  using  one of the techniques described in sec-

      tion 2.2.

           After a connection is established, sendmail makes

      the  per-mailer  changes  to  the header and sends the

      result to the mailer.  If any mail is rejected by  the

      mailer,  a  flag is set to invoke the return-to-sender

      function after all delivery completes.

   3.6.  Queued Messages

           If the mailer returns a "temporary failure"  exit

      status, the message is queued.  A control file is used

      to describe the recipients to be sent to  and  various

      other parameters.  This control file is formatted as a

      series of lines, each describing a sender,  a  recipi-

      ent,  the  time  of  submission, or some other salient

      parameter of the message.  The header of  the  message

      is  stored in the control file, so that the associated

      data file in the queue is just the temporary file that

      was originally collected.

   3.7.  Configuration

           Configuration  is  controlled primarily by a con-

      figuration file read at startup.  Sendmail should  not

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-19

      need to be recomplied except

       (1)   To change operating systems (V6, V7/32V, 4BSD).

       (2)   To remove or insert  the  DBM  (UNIX  database)

             library.

       (3)   To change ARPANET reply codes.

       (4)   To  add  headers  fields requiring special pro-

             cessing.

      Adding mailers or changing parsing  (i.e.,  rewriting)

      or routing information does not require recompilation.

           If the mail is being sent by a  local  user,  and

      the  file ".mailcf" exists in the sender's home direc-

      tory, that file is read as a configuration file  after

      the  system  configuration  file.   The primary use of

      this feature is to add header lines.

           The configuration file encodes macro definitions,

      header   definitions,  mailer  definitions,  rewriting

      rules, and options.

      3.7.1.  Macros

              Macros can be used  in  three  ways.   Certain

         macros  transmit  unstructured  textual information

         into the mail system, such  as  the  name  sendmail

         will  use  to  identify  itself  in error messages.

SMM:9-20             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

         Other macros transmit information from sendmail  to

         the  configuration  file  for use in creating other

         fields (such as argument vectors to mailers); e.g.,

         the  name  of  the sender, and the host and user of

         the recipient.  Other macros are unused internally,

         and  can  be used as shorthand in the configuration

         file.

      3.7.2.  Header declarations

              Header declarations  inform  sendmail  of  the

         format  of  known header lines.  Knowledge of a few

         header lines is built into sendmail,  such  as  the

         "From:" and "Date:" lines.

              Most  configured headers will be automatically

         inserted in the  outgoing  message  if  they  don't

         exist in the incoming message.  Certain headers are

         suppressed by some mailers.

      3.7.3.  Mailer declarations

              Mailer declarations tell sendmail of the vari-

         ous mailers available to it.  The definition speci-

         fies the internal name of the mailer, the  pathname

         of  the program to call, some flags associated with

         the mailer, and an argument vector to  be  used  on

         the call; this vector is macro-expanded before use.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-21

      3.7.4.  Address rewriting rules

              The heart of address parsing in sendmail is  a

         set  of rewriting rules.  These are an ordered list

         of pattern-replacement rules, (somewhat like a pro-

         duction  system,  except  that  order is critical),

         which are applied to each address.  The address  is

         rewritten  textually  until  it is either rewritten

         into a special canonical  form  (i.e.,  a  (mailer,

         host,  user)  3-tuple,  such as {arpanet, usc-isif,

         postel}  representing  the   address   "postel@usc-

         isif"),  or  it  falls off the end.  When a pattern

         matches, the rule is reapplied until it fails.

              The configuration file also supports the edit-

         ing of addresses into different formats.  For exam-

         ple, an address of the form:

             ucsfcgl!tef

         might be mapped into:

             [email protected]

         to conform to the domain syntax.  Translations  can

         also be done in the other direction.

      3.7.5.  Option setting

              There are several options that can be set from

         the  configuration   file.    These   include   the

SMM:9-22             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

         pathnames   of  various  support  files,  timeouts,

         default modes, etc.

4.  COMPARISON WITH OTHER MAILERS

   4.1.  Delivermail

           Sendmail is an  outgrowth  of  delivermail.   The

      primary differences are:

       (1)   Configuration  information  is not compiled in.

             This change simplifies many of the problems  of

             moving  to other machines.  It also allows easy

             debugging of new mailers.

       (2)   Address parsing is more flexible.  For example,

             delivermail  only  supported one gateway to any

             network, whereas sendmail can be  sensitive  to

             host names and reroute to different gateways.

       (3)   Forwarding and :include: features eliminate the

             requirement  that  the  system  alias  file  be

             writable by any user (or that an update program

             be written, or that the  system  administration

             make all changes).

       (4)   Sendmail  supports message batching across net-

             works when a message is being sent to  multiple

             recipients.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-23

       (5)   A  mail  queue  is  provided in sendmail.  Mail

             that cannot be delivered  immediately  but  can

             potentially  be  delivered  later  is stored in

             this queue for a later retry.  The  queue  also

             provides a buffer against system crashes; after

             the message has been collected it may be  reli-

             ably  redelivered  even  if  the system crashes

             during the initial delivery.

       (6)   Sendmail uses the networking  support  provided

             by  4.2BSD  to  provide a direct interface net-

             works such as the ARPANET and/or Ethernet using

             SMTP (the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) over a

             TCP/IP connection.

   4.2.  MMDF

           MMDF [Crocker79] spans a wider problem  set  than

      sendmail.   For example, the domain of MMDF includes a

      "phone network" mailer, whereas sendmail calls on pre-

      existing mailers in most cases.

           MMDF  and  sendmail  both  support aliasing, cus-

      tomized mailers, message batching, automatic  forward-

      ing  to  gateways, queueing, and retransmission.  MMDF

      supports two-stage timeout, which  sendmail  does  not

      support.

SMM:9-24             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

           The  configuration  for MMDF is compiled into the

      code4.

           Since MMDF does not consider  backwards  compati-

      bility  as  a design goal, the address parsing is sim-

      pler but much less flexible.

           It is somewhat harder to integrate a new channel5

      into MMDF.  In particular, MMDF must know the location

      and format of host tables for all  channels,  and  the

      channel  must  speak  a special protocol.  This allows

      MMDF to do additional verification (such as  verifying

      host names) at submission time.

           MMDF strictly separates the submission and deliv-

      ery phases.  Although sendmail has the concept of each

      of these stages, they are integrated into one program,

      whereas in MMDF they are split into two programs.

   4.3.  Message Processing Module

           The Message Processing Module (MPM) discussed  by

      Postel  [Postel79b]  matches sendmail closely in terms

      of its basic architecture.  However,  like  MMDF,  the

      MPM includes the network interface software as part of

      its domain.
____________________
   4Dynamic configuration tables are currently being consid-
ered  for MMDF; allowing the installer to select either com-
piled or dynamic tables.
   5The MMDF equivalent of a sendmail "mailer."

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-25

           MPM also  postulates  a  duplex  channel  to  the

      receiver, as does MMDF, thus allowing simpler handling

      of errors by the mailer than is possible in  sendmail.

      When  a message queued by sendmail is sent, any errors

      must be returned to the sender by the  mailer  itself.

      Both  MPM  and  MMDF  mailers  can return an immediate

      error response, and a single error processor can  cre-

      ate an appropriate response.

           MPM  prefers  passing the message as a structured

      object, with type-length-value tuples6.  Such  a  con-

      vention  requires  a much higher degree of cooperation

      between mailers than is  required  by  sendmail.   MPM

      also  assumes  a universally agreed upon internet name

      space (with each address in the form  of  a  net-host-

      user tuple), which sendmail does not.

5.  EVALUATIONS AND FUTURE PLANS

        Sendmail  is  designed  to  work in a nonhomogeneous

   environment.  Every attempt is  made  to  avoid  imposing

   unnecessary  constraints on the underlying mailers.  This

   goal has driven much of the design.   One  of  the  major

   problems has been the lack of a uniform address space, as

   postulated in [Postel79a] and [Postel79b].

____________________
   6This is similar to the NBS standard.

SMM:9-26             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

        A nonuniform address space implies that a path  will

   be specified in all addresses, either explicitly (as part

   of the address) or implicitly (as with implied forwarding

   to gateways).  This restriction has the unpleasant effect

   of making replying  to  messages  exceedingly  difficult,

   since  there is no one "address" for any person, but only

   a way to get there from wherever you are.

        Interfacing to mail programs that were not initially

   intended  to  be  applied  in an internet environment has

   been amazingly successful, and has reduced the job  to  a

   manageable task.

        Sendmail  has  knowledge of a few difficult environ-

   ments built in.  It generates ARPANET FTP/SMTP compatible

   error  messages (prepended with three-digit numbers [Nei-

   gus73, Postel74, Postel82]) as necessary, optionally gen-

   erates  UNIX-style  "From" lines on the front of messages

   for some mailers, and knows how to parse the  same  lines

   on  input.  Also, error handling has an option customized

   for BerkNet.

        The decision to avoid doing  any  type  of  delivery

   where possible (even, or perhaps especially, local deliv-

   ery) has turned out to be a good idea.  Even  with  local

   delivery,  there  are issues of the location of the mail-

   box, the format of  the  mailbox,  the  locking  protocol

   used, etc., that are best decided by other programs.  One

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-27

   surprisingly major annoyance in many internet mailers  is

   that  the  location and format of local mail is built in.

   The feeling seems to be that local mail is so common that

   it  should be efficient.  This feeling is not born out by

   our experience; on the contrary, the location and  format

   of  mailboxes seems to vary widely from system to system.

        The ability to automatically generate a response  to

   incoming  mail  (by  forwarding  mail to a program) seems

   useful ("I am on vacation until  late  August....")   but

   can  create problems such as forwarding loops (two people

   on vacation whose programs send notes back and forth, for

   instance) if these programs are not well written.  A pro-

   gram could be written to do standard tasks correctly, but

   this would solve the general case.

        It might be desirable to implement some form of load

   limiting.  I am unaware of any mail system that addresses

   this  problem,  nor am I aware of any reasonable solution

   at this time.

        The  configuration  file  is  currently  practically

   inscrutable;  considerable  convenience could be realized

   with a higher-level format.

        It seems clear that common protocols will be  chang-

   ing  soon  to accommodate changing requirements and envi-

   ronments.  These changes will  include  modifications  to

   the  message header (e.g., [NBS80]) or to the body of the

SMM:9-28             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

   message itself (such as  for  multimedia  messages  [Pos-

   tel80]).   Experience indicates that these changes should

   be relatively trivial to integrate into the existing sys-

   tem.

        In tightly coupled environments, it would be nice to

   have a name server such  as  Grapvine  [Birrell82]  inte-

   grated  into  the  mail  system.  This would allow a site

   such as "Berkeley" to appear as  a  single  host,  rather

   than  as a collection of hosts, and would allow people to

   move  transparently  among  machines  without  having  to

   change their addresses.  Such a facility would require an

   automatically updated database and some method of resolv-

   ing  conflicts.   Ideally  this  would  be effective even

   without all hosts being under a single management.   How-

   ever,  it  is  not  clear  whether this feature should be

   integrated into the aliasing facility or should  be  con-

   sidered  a "value added" feature outside sendmail itself.

        As a more interesting case, the  CSNET  name  server

   [Solomon81]  provides an facility that goes beyond a sin-

   gle tightly-coupled environment.  Such a  facility  would

   normally exist outside of sendmail however.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

     Thanks  are due to Kurt Shoens for his continual cheer-

ful assistance and good advice, Bill Joy for pointing me  in

the  correct  direction (over and over), and Mark Horton for

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-29

more advice, prodding, and many of the good ideas.  Kurt and

Eric  Schmidt  are to be credited for using delivermail as a

server for their programs (Mail  and  BerkNet  respectively)

before any sane person should have, and making the necessary

modifications promptly and happily.  Eric gave me  consider-

able advice about the perils of network software which saved

me an unknown amount of work and grief.  Mark did the origi-

nal implementation of the DBM version of aliasing, installed

the VFORK code, wrote the current version of rmail, and  was

the  person  who  really  convinced  me to put the work into

delivermail to turn it into sendmail.  Kurt  deserves  acco-

lades  for  using  sendmail when I was myself afraid to take

the risk; how a person can continue to be so enthusiastic in

the face of so much bitter reality is beyond me.

     Kurt,  Mark,  Kirk  McKusick,  Marvin Solomon, and many

others have reviewed this paper, giving considerable  useful

advice.

     Special  thanks  are  reserved  for Mike Stonebraker at

Berkeley and Bob Epstein at Britton-Lee, who both  knowingly

allowed  me to put so much work into this project when there

were so many other things I really should have been  working

on.

                         REFERENCES

[Birrell82]    Birrell,  A.  D.,  Levin, R., Needham, R. M.,

               and Schroeder, M. D., "Grapevine: An Exercise

               in  Distributed  Computing."  In Comm. A.C.M.

               25, 4, April 82.

[Borden79]     Borden, S., Gaines, R. S.,  and  Shapiro,  N.

               Z.,  The  MH  Message Handling System: Users'

               Manual.    R-2367-PAF.    Rand   Corporation.

               October 1979.

[Crocker77a]   Crocker, D. H., Vittal, J. J., Pogran, K. T.,

               and Henderson, D. A. Jr.,  Standard  for  the

               Format  of  ARPA  Network Text Messages.  RFC

               733, NIC 41952.   In  [Feinler78].   November

               1977.

[Crocker77b]   Crocker,  D.  H.,  Framework and Functions of

               the MS Personal Message System.  R-2134-ARPA,

               Rand  Corporation,  Santa Monica, California.

               1977.

[Crocker79]    Crocker, D. H., Szurkowski, E. S.,  and  Far-

               ber, D. J., An Internetwork Memo Distribution

               Facility --  MMDF.   6th  Data  Communication

               Symposium, Asilomar.  November 1979.

SMM:9-30             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-31

[Crocker82]    Crocker,  D.  H.,  Standard for the Format of

               Arpa Internet Text Messages.  RFC 822.   Net-

               work  Information  Center, SRI International,

               Menlo Park, California.  August 1982.

[Metcalfe76]   Metcalfe, R., and Boggs, D., "Ethernet:  Dis-

               tributed  Packet Switching for Local Computer

               Networks", Communications of the ACM  19,  7.

               July 1976.

[Feinler78]    Feinler,  E., and Postel, J.  (eds.), ARPANET

               Protocol Handbook.  NIC 7104, Network  Infor-

               mation Center, SRI International, Menlo Park,

               California.  1978.

[NBS80]        National Bureau of  Standards,  Specification

               of  a  Draft Message Format Standard.  Report

               No. ICST/CBOS 80-2.  October 1980.

[Neigus73]     Neigus, N., File Transfer  Protocol  for  the

               ARPA Network.  RFC 542, NIC 17759.  In [Fein-

               ler78].  August, 1973.

[Nowitz78a]    Nowitz, D. A., and Lesk,  M.  E.,  A  Dial-Up

               Network  of UNIX Systems.  Bell Laboratories.

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               Volume 2.  August, 1978.

[Nowitz78b]    Nowitz,  D.  A., Uucp Implementation Descrip-

               tion.    Bell    Laboratories.     In    UNIX

SMM:9-32             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

               Programmer's  Manual, Seventh Edition, Volume

               2.  October, 1978.

[Postel74]     Postel, J., and Neigus, N., Revised FTP Reply

               Codes.   RFC 640, NIC 30843.  In [Feinler78].

               June, 1974.

[Postel77]     Postel, J., Mail Protocol.   NIC  29588.   In

               [Feinler78].  November 1977.

[Postel79a]    Postel,  J.,  Internet Message Protocol.  RFC

               753, IEN 85.  Network Information Center, SRI

               International, Menlo Park, California.  March

               1979.

[Postel79b]    Postel, J. B., An Internetwork Message Struc-

               ture.   In Proceedings of the Sixth Data Com-

               munications  Symposium,  IEEE.    New   York.

               November 1979.

[Postel80]     Postel, J. B., A Structured Format for Trans-

               mission of Multi-Media Documents.   RFC  767.

               Network   Information  Center,  SRI  Interna-

               tional, Menlo Park, California.  August 1980.

[Postel82]     Postel, J. B., Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.

               RFC821 (obsoleting RFC788).  Network Informa-

               tion  Center,  SRI International, Menlo Park,

               California.  August 1982.

SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router             SMM:9-33

[Schmidt79]    Schmidt, E., An Introduction to the  Berkeley

               Network.   University of California, Berkeley

               California.  1979.

[Shoens79]     Shoens, K., Mail Reference  Manual.   Univer-

               sity  of  California, Berkeley.  In UNIX Pro-

               grammer's Manual, Seventh Edition, Volume 2C.

               December 1979.

[Sluizer81]    Sluizer, S., and Postel, J. B., Mail Transfer

               Protocol.  RFC 780.  Network Information Cen-

               ter,  SRI International, Menlo Park, Califor-

               nia.  May 1981.

[Solomon81]    Solomon, M., Landweber,  L.,  and  Neuhengen,

               D.,  "The  Design  of the CSNET Name Server."

               CS-DN-2, University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison.

               November 1981.

[Su82]         Su,  Zaw-Sing,  and  Postel,  Jon, The Domain

               Naming Convention for Internet User  Applica-

               tions.   RFC819.  Network Information Center,

               SRI International,  Menlo  Park,  California.

               August 1982.

[UNIX83]       The  UNIX  Programmer's  Manual, Seventh Edi-

               tion, Virtual VAX-11 Version, Volume 1.  Bell

               Laboratories,  modified  by the University of

               California,  Berkeley,  California.    March,

SMM:9-34             SENDMAIL -- An Internetwork Mail Router

               1983.



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Last modified: March 12, 2019