1.\" $OpenBSD: mailwrapper.8,v 1.10 2009/02/07 16:58:23 martynas Exp $ 2.\" $NetBSD: mailwrapper.8,v 1.11 2002/02/08 01:38:50 ross Exp $ 3.\" $FreeBSD$ 4.\" 5.\" Copyright (c) 1998 6.\" Perry E. Metzger. All rights reserved. 7.\" 8.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 9.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 10.\" are met: 11.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 13.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 14.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 15.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 16.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 17.\" must display the following acknowledgment: 18.\" This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project 19.\" by Perry E. Metzger. 20.\" 4. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products 21.\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission. 22.\" 23.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR 24.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES 25.\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. 26.\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, 27.\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT 28.\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, 29.\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY 30.\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT 31.\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF 32.\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 33.\" 34.Dd August 7, 2006 35.Dt MAILWRAPPER 8 36.Os 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm mailwrapper 39.Nd invoke appropriate MTA software based on configuration file 40.Sh SYNOPSIS 41Special. 42See below. 43.Sh DESCRIPTION 44At one time, the only Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) software easily available 45was 46.Xr sendmail 8 . 47As a result of this, most Mail User Agents (MUAs) such as 48.Xr mail 1 49had the path and calling conventions expected by 50.Xr sendmail 8 51compiled in. 52.Pp 53Times have changed, however. 54On a modern 55.Ux 56system, the administrator may wish to use one of several 57available MTAs. 58.Pp 59It would be difficult to modify all MUA software typically available 60on a system, so most of the authors of alternative MTAs have written 61their front end message submission programs so that they use the same 62calling conventions as 63.Xr sendmail 8 64and may be put into place instead of 65.Xr sendmail 8 66in 67.Pa /usr/sbin/sendmail . 68.Pp 69.Xr sendmail 8 70also typically has aliases named 71.Xr mailq 1 72and 73.Xr newaliases 1 74linked to it. 75The program knows to behave differently when its 76.Va argv[0] 77is 78.Dq mailq 79or 80.Dq newaliases 81and behaves appropriately. 82Typically, replacement MTAs provide similar 83functionality, either through a program that also switches behavior 84based on calling name, or through a set of programs that provide 85similar functionality. 86.Pp 87Although having drop-in replacements for 88.Xr sendmail 8 89helps in installing alternative MTAs, it essentially makes the 90configuration of the system depend on hand installing new programs in 91.Pa /usr . 92This leads to configuration problems for many administrators, since 93they may wish to install a new MTA without altering the system 94provided 95.Pa /usr . 96(This may be, for example, to avoid having upgrade problems when a new 97version of the system is installed over the old.) 98They may also have a shared 99.Pa /usr 100among several 101machines, and may wish to avoid placing implicit configuration 102information in a read-only 103.Pa /usr . 104.Pp 105The 106.Nm 107utility is designed to replace 108.Pa /usr/sbin/sendmail 109and to invoke an appropriate MTA instead of 110.Xr sendmail 8 111based on configuration information placed in 112.Pa /etc/mail/mailer.conf . 113This permits the administrator to configure which MTA is to be invoked on 114the system at run time. 115.Pp 116Other configuration files may need to be altered when replacing 117.Xr sendmail 8 . 118For example, if the replacement MTA does not support the 119.Fl A 120option with 121.Xr mailq 1 , 122.Va daily_status_include_submit_mailq 123should be turned off in 124.Pa /etc/periodic.conf . 125.Sh FILES 126Configuration for 127.Nm 128is kept in 129.Pa /etc/mail/mailer.conf . 130.Pa /usr/sbin/sendmail 131is typically set up as a symbolic link to 132.Nm 133which is not usually invoked on its own. 134.Sh EXIT STATUS 135.Ex -std 136.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 137The 138.Nm 139will print a diagnostic if its configuration file is missing or malformed, 140or does not contain a mapping for the name under which it was invoked. 141.Sh SEE ALSO 142.Xr mail 1 , 143.Xr mailq 1 , 144.Xr newaliases 1 , 145.Xr mailer.conf 5 , 146.Xr periodic.conf 5 , 147.Xr sendmail 8 148.Sh HISTORY 149The 150.Nm 151utility first appeared in 152.Nx 1.4 153and then 154.Fx 4.0 . 155.Sh AUTHORS 156.An Perry E. Metzger Aq perry@piermont.com 157.Sh BUGS 158The entire reason this program exists is a crock. 159Instead, a command 160for how to submit mail should be standardized, and all the "behave 161differently if invoked with a different name" behavior of things like 162.Xr mailq 1 163should go away. 164