1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
|
.\" $OpenBSD: mailwrapper.8,v 1.10 2009/02/07 16:58:23 martynas Exp $
.\" $NetBSD: mailwrapper.8,v 1.11 2002/02/08 01:38:50 ross Exp $
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1998
.\" Perry E. Metzger. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
.\" must display the following acknowledgment:
.\" This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
.\" by Perry E. Metzger.
.\" 4. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products
.\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
.\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
.\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
.\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
.\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
.\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
.\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
.\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
.\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.Dd August 27, 2014
.Dt MAILWRAPPER 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm mailwrapper
.Nd invoke appropriate MTA software based on configuration file
.Sh SYNOPSIS
Special.
See below.
.Sh DESCRIPTION
At one time, the only Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) software easily available
was
.Xr sendmail 8 .
As a result of this, most Mail User Agents (MUAs) such as
.Xr mail 1
had the path and calling conventions expected by
.Xr sendmail 8
compiled in.
.Pp
Times have changed, however.
On a modern
.Ux
system, the administrator may wish to use one of several
available MTAs.
.Pp
It would be difficult to modify all MUA software typically available
on a system, so most of the authors of alternative MTAs have written
their front end message submission programs so that they use the same
calling conventions as
.Xr sendmail 8
and may be put into place instead of
.Xr sendmail 8
in
.Pa /usr/sbin/sendmail .
.Pp
.Xr sendmail 8
also typically has aliases named
.Xr mailq 1
and
.Xr newaliases 1
linked to it.
The program knows to behave differently when its
.Va argv[0]
is
.Dq mailq
or
.Dq newaliases
and behaves appropriately.
Typically, replacement MTAs provide similar
functionality, either through a program that also switches behavior
based on calling name, or through a set of programs that provide
similar functionality.
.Pp
Although having drop-in replacements for
.Xr sendmail 8
helps in installing alternative MTAs, it essentially makes the
configuration of the system depend on hand installing new programs in
.Pa /usr .
This leads to configuration problems for many administrators, since
they may wish to install a new MTA without altering the system
provided
.Pa /usr .
(This may be, for example, to avoid having upgrade problems when a new
version of the system is installed over the old.)
They may also have a shared
.Pa /usr
among several
machines, and may wish to avoid placing implicit configuration
information in a read-only
.Pa /usr .
.Pp
The
.Nm
utility is designed to replace
.Pa /usr/sbin/sendmail
and to invoke an appropriate MTA instead of
.Xr sendmail 8
based on configuration information placed in
.Pa ${LOCALBASE}/etc/mail/mailer.conf
falling back on
.Pa /etc/mail/mailer.conf .
This permits the administrator to configure which MTA is to be invoked on
the system at run time.
.Pp
Other configuration files may need to be altered when replacing
.Xr sendmail 8 .
For example, if the replacement MTA does not support the
.Fl A
option with
.Xr mailq 1 ,
.Va daily_status_include_submit_mailq
should be turned off in
.Pa /etc/periodic.conf .
.Sh FILES
Configuration for
.Nm
is kept in
.Pa ${LOCALBASE}/etc/mail/mailer.conf
or
.Pa /etc/mail/mailer.conf .
.Pa /usr/sbin/sendmail
is typically set up as a symbolic link to
.Nm
which is not usually invoked on its own.
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
The
.Nm
will print a diagnostic if its configuration file is missing or malformed,
or does not contain a mapping for the name under which it was invoked.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr mail 1 ,
.Xr mailq 1 ,
.Xr newaliases 1 ,
.Xr mailer.conf 5 ,
.Xr periodic.conf 5 ,
.Xr sendmail 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility first appeared in
.Nx 1.4
and then
.Fx 4.0 .
.Sh AUTHORS
.An Perry E. Metzger Aq perry@piermont.com
.Sh BUGS
The entire reason this program exists is a crock.
Instead, a command
for how to submit mail should be standardized, and all the "behave
differently if invoked with a different name" behavior of things like
.Xr mailq 1
should go away.
|