Book details of 'Sendmail (nutshell handbook)'

Title	Sendmail (nutshell handbook)
Author(s)	Bryan Costales, Eric Allman, Giga Estabrook
ISBN	1565922220
Language	English
Published	January 1997
Publisher	O'Reilly & Associates

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The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'Sendmail (nutshell handbook)':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
Sendmail might not be the heart of UNIX mail and communications services, but it certainly is a good portion of the autonomic nervous system. Although considered venerable by some, it is also extremely widely used. This book hopes to make sendmail administration not only easy, but fun. Quite a task. Part one of the book is tutorial in nature, starting with background information in chapter one. We are given a brief history and philosophy of sendmail, plus some description of the component parts, and the related Internet RFCs (Request For Comment) and technologies. (RFCs, the name to the contrary, are the descriptions of how Internet functions should work. In a sense, they are the standards of the Internet.) Chapter two gives us some examples of how "subnetworks" of machines within the Internet handle mail among themselves, and introduces routing, very briefly. It takes its tutorial function seriously: there are questions at the end of the chapter for you to think about or try out. The questions get harder in chapter three, and start requiring more knowledge of both UNIX and the RFCs, in order to deal with headers and "envelopes". (Actually, the text is easy. Only the questions are hard.) Chapter four introduces the various related programs that sendmail calls and the functions it performs. So it continues up to chapter fifteen. The tutorial covers the invocation and switches, the configuration file, mail delivery agents, macros, rules, rules and more rules, class macros, options, headers, and miscellaneous topics. Part two deals with administration and management, and runs you through the process of configuring, compiling and installing sendmail. It also has specifics of V8 and IDA, as well as DNS (Domain Name Server). Topics covered include security, the queue, aliases, mailing lists and forwarding logging and statistics. Part three is the reference, and chapters twenty-three to thirty-three list the options for delivery agents; defined, class and database macros; options, headers, the command line and debugging. Finally, seven appendices deal with queue file intervals, obscure error messages, the "define" macros in the confi.h file, the client.cf file from the tutorial, V8 and IDA configuration macros, and a bibliography. Because of the nature of the book, you will find a fair amount of material duplicated (for example between the tutorial on delivery agents, and the reference sections). However, the duplicated material, and the short chaptering make this an excellent reference work overall. The material is generally clear and well laid out. The tutorial section is definitely for the technically advanced: I suspect the authors have a ways to go before many people find sendmail "fun".
Reviewer Koos van den Hout wrote:
The batbook. The reference on sendmail and configuring it. A must-have for any system administrator dealing with sendmail.
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