If I am building sendmail from source and blan using the ./Build
command, how would I add an "--prefix=/some/dir" flag to it

On 3/28/23 4:02 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:
> If I am building sendmail from source and blan using the ./Build
> command, how would I add an "--prefix=/some/dir" flag to it

I believe that's covered in the README file in the root of the
(extracted) source code directory.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> writes:

> On 3/28/23 4:02 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:
>> If I am building sendmail from source and blan using the ./Build
>> command, how would I add an "--prefix=/some/dir" flag to it
>
> I believe that's covered in the README file in the root of the
> (extracted) source code directory.
I finished my first scans of sendmail-version/README 17857
sendmail-verion/sendmail/README 84752
sendmail-version/sendmail/cf/README 192749
sendmail-verion/sendmail/cf/cf/README 901
========
296259


------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------
The only thing I noticed was in the first one sendmail-verion

It's really about which DB software to use

,/Build -I/path/to/include/directory

but at least vaguely has the look of similar syntax
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------

First I searched them all with grep for `prefix' but understood it could be
worded differently.

Evan a slip shod scan like I probably did is pretty time consuming at
nearly 300,000 lines.

In my scanning it appeared there are really only two of them likely to
contain such a thing.

There were a few 'make' cmds for finding include files and such, maybe that
is how it might be done; using the make command.

[...]

> The only thing I noticed was in the first one sendmail-verion
>
> It's really about which DB software to use
>
> ,/Build -I/path/to/include/directory
>
> but at least vaguely has the look of similar syntax

[...]

I may have hit on something in the README in devtools

,----
| You can put such site configuration files in the Site sub-directory;
| see Site/README for details.
|
| If you need to support multiple build configurations from the same tree,
| you can use prefixes to differentiate your configurations. Use the -Q
| flag to Build:
|
| ./Build -Q prefix
|
| Build will select a prefix.*.m4 file instead of the site.*.m4 file according
| to the conventions in Site/README, and use it to modify the build
| configuration. The object directory used will be obj.prefix.*/. Your
| prefix.*.m4 files should reside in the Site directory. You may not use
| -Q and -f simultaneously.
`----

I'm not getting how it is supposed work yet though

On 3/28/23 8:49 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:
> I'm not getting how it is supposed work yet though

I've built Sendmail from source many times. But I don't remember ever
changing the installation directories.

I don't know where the definition is.

You might try recursively greping for the default installation location,
or the last directory there of, to see if you can find the definition.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 3/29/23 04:49, Harry Putnam wrote:

> I may have hit on something in the README in devtools
>
> ,----
> | You can put such site configuration files in the Site sub-directory;
> | see Site/README for details.
> |
> | If you need to support multiple build configurations from the same tree,
> | you can use prefixes to differentiate your configurations. Use the -Q
> | flag to Build:
> |
> | ./Build -Q prefix
> |
> | Build will select a prefix.*.m4 file instead of the site.*.m4 file according
> | to the conventions in Site/README, and use it to modify the build
> | configuration. The object directory used will be obj.prefix.*/. Your
> | prefix.*.m4 files should reside in the Site directory. You may not use
> | -Q and -f simultaneously.
> `----
>
> I'm not getting how it is supposed work yet though

To get a hasty overview of options, execute in the sendmail source root
directory
grep ^conf[A-Z] devtools/README

As far as I can see, there is no prefix like in make, you have to tweak
the paths for the different types of files that will be installed.

Maybe the following sites can give some other insights:
http://www.faqs.org/docs/securing/chap22sec174.html
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/sendmail-cookbook/0596004710/ch01.html

--
//Aho

Harry Putnam wrote:
> If I am building sendmail from source and blan using the ./Build
> command, how would I add an "--prefix=/some/dir" flag to it

See devtools/README.

confEBINDIR /usr/libexec The location for binaries executed
from other binaries, e.g., mail.local
or smrsh.
confLIBDIR /usr/lib Where to install library files.
confMBINDIR /usr/sbin The location of the MTA (sm-mta,
sendmail) binary.
confSBINDIR /usr/sbin The location of root-oriented
commands, such as makemap.
confUBINDIR /usr/bin The directory for user-executable
binaries.

You can put such site configuration files in the Site sub-directory;
see Site/README for details.

--
Note: please read the netiquette before posting. I will almost never
reply to top-postings which include a full copy of the previous
article(s) at the end because it's annoying, shows that the poster
is too lazy to trim his article, and it's wasting the time of all readers.

Thanking you all for such good input.

I'm sorry I'm not able to take it in very well . Seems like for every
tiny step I take there are 10 options or steps required to proceed and i
don't understand hardly any of them.

I'm going to have to pull back from attempting building sendmail
myself. I'll try to get somewhere with what my OS (ubuntu) does with
it. Followed by a very lot of experimenting and reading until some of it
starts to make sense.

Harry Putnam wrote:

> Seems like for every
> tiny step I take there are 10 options or steps required to proceed and i

"What is the problem you are trying to solve?"

The default settings usually just work.
Why do you want to use something like "--prefix"?

--
Note: please read the netiquette before posting. I will almost never
reply to top-postings which include a full copy of the previous
article(s) at the end because it's annoying, shows that the poster
is too lazy to trim his article, and it's wasting the time of all readers.

Claus Aßmann
<INVALID_NO_CC_REMOVE_IF_YOU_DO_NOT_POST_ml+sendmail(-no-copies-please)@esmtp.org>
writes:

> Harry Putnam wrote:
>
>> Seems like for every
>> tiny step I take there are 10 options or steps required to proceed and i

> "What is the problem you are trying to solve?"

The rub for me comes from not having an authentic FQDN. I'm just a
single user on a connection from my computer to internet by way of
XFinity.

That presents serious DNS problems for any lookup activity causing a
failure of a smarthost to authinenticate, even though I have a special
uid and pwd from fastmail to access the smtp server as relay.

If I try to explain further it will get hard to follow. Mainly because
I don't understand what the heck I'm doing or how the underlying
process really work.

However I can show a config that fails. (at end of message)

>
> The default settings usually just work.

What are the default settings? Do you mean as my OS would install
sendmail it should just work from there?

> Why do you want to use something like "--prefix"?

Its just a handy way to experiment with software and not accidently
mess up my system. Steer the install away from the expected
directories and set PATH to find it when testing

I've never tried it with sendmail but didn't figure it would be too
hard, turns out it appear to be a bit obtuse.

I came on that '--prefix=/some/dir' procedure long ago while building
emacs from source repeatedly.

It's really not important to current discussion. Probably best to just
drop it.

Here is an example failed attempt to send mail with config files below
in place, using "mailx -vv"

mail host is "uw.local.lan" (not a recognized FQDN)
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------

reader > mailx -vv -s "$(date +"%y%m%d%H%M%S")- $(hostname)" reader@jtan.com <msg-file
reader@jtan.com... Connecting to [127.0.0.1] via relay...
220 uw.local.lan ESMTP Sendmail 8.15.2/8.15.2/Debian-22ubuntu3; Thu, 30 Mar 2023 13:20:32 -0400; (No UCE/UBE) logging access from: uw.local.lan(OK)-uw.local.lan [127.0.0.1]
>>> EHLO uw.local.lan
250-uw.local.lan Hello uw.local.lan [127.0.0.1], pleased to meet you
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-PIPELINING
250-EXPN
250-VERB
250-8BITMIME
250-SIZE
250-DSN
250-ETRN
250-AUTH GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN
250-DELIVERBY
250 HELP
>>> VERB
250 2.0.0 Verbose mode
>>> MAIL From:<reader@uw.local.lan> SIZE=1527 AUTH=reader@uw.local.lan
250 2.1.0 <reader@uw.local.lan>... Sender ok
>>> RCPT To:<reader@jtan.com>
>>> DATA
250 2.1.5 <reader@jtan.com>... Recipient ok
354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself
>>> .
050 <reader@jtan.com>... Connecting to smtp.fastmail.com. port 587 via relay...
050 220 smtp.fastmail.com ESMTP ready
050 >>> EHLO uw.local.lan
050 250-smtp.fastmail.com
050 250-PIPELINING
050 250-SIZE 71000000
050 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
050 250-8BITMIME
050 250 STARTTLS
050 >>> STARTTLS
050 220 2.0.0 Start TLS
050 >>> EHLO uw.local.lan
050 250-smtp.fastmail.com
050 250-PIPELINING
050 250-SIZE 71000000
050 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
050 250-8BITMIME
050 250 AUTH PLAIN LOGIN XOAUTH2 OAUTHBEARER
050 >>> AUTH PLAIN aHB1dDNAZmFzdG1haWwuZm0AaHB1dDNAZmFzdG1haWwuZm0AM2g2YW5iNTVjZHBqNWtnYg==
050 235 2.0.0 OK
050 >>> MAIL From:<reader@uw.local.lan> SIZE=1772 AUTH=<>
050 250 2.1.0 Ok
050 >>> RCPT To:<reader@jtan.com>
050 >>> DATA
050 250 2.1.5 Ok
050 354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
050 >>> .
050 551 5.7.1 Not authorised to send from this header address
050 <reader@uw.local.lan>... Connecting to local...
050 <reader@uw.local.lan>... Sent
250 2.0.0 32UHKWS9084849 Message accepted for delivery
reader@jtan.com... Sent (32UHKWS9084849 Message accepted for delivery)
Closing connection to [127.0.0.1]
>>> QUIT
221 2.0.0 uw.local.lan closing connection
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------
sendmail.mc, submit.mc and access (lastline)
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------

access: (last line)
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------
Note the munged pw is something from my account at fastmail.com -HP
AuthInfo:smtp.fastmail.com "U:hput3@fastmail.fm" "P:munged" "M:PLAIN"
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------

sendmail.mc (trimmed):

egrep -v '^(#|dnl|^$)' sendmail.mc
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------
divert(-1)dnl
divert(0)dnl
define(`_USE_ETC_MAIL_')dnl
include(`/usr/share/sendmail/cf/m4/cf.m4')dnl
VERSIONID(`$Id: sendmail.mc, v 8.15.2-22ubuntu3 2021-12-09 00:18:01 cowboy Exp $')
OSTYPE(`debian')dnl
DOMAIN(`debian-mta')dnl
undefine(`confHOST_STATUS_DIRECTORY')dnl #DAEMON_HOSTSTATS=
define(`SMART_HOST', [`smtp.fastmail.com'])dnl
define(`RELAY_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')dnl
define(`ESMTP_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')dnl
TRUST_AUTH_MECH(`EXTERNAL DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl
define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl
FEATURE(`access_db', `hash -T<TMPF> -o /etc/mail/access.db')dnl
FEATURE(`no_default_msa')dnl
DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Family=inet, Name=MTA-v4, Port=smtp, Addr=127.0.0.1')dnl
DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Family=inet, Name=MSP-v4, Port=submission, M=Ea, Addr=127.0.0.1')dnl
define(`confPRIVACY_FLAGS',dnl
`needmailhelo,needexpnhelo,needvrfyhelo,restrictqrun,restrictexpand,nobodyreturn,authwarnings')dnl
define(`confCONNECTION_RATE_THROTTLE', `15')dnl
define(`confCONNECTION_RATE_WINDOW_SIZE',`10m')dnl
FEATURE(`use_cw_file')dnl
FEATURE(`greet_pause', `1000')dnl 1 seconds
FEATURE(`delay_checks', `friend', `n')dnl
define(`confBAD_RCPT_THROTTLE',`3')dnl
FEATURE(`conncontrol', `nodelay', `terminate')dnl
FEATURE(`ratecontrol', `nodelay', `terminate')dnl
include(`/etc/mail/m4/dialup.m4')dnl
include(`/etc/mail/m4/provider.m4')dnl
MAILER_DEFINITIONS
MAILER(`local')dnl
MAILER(`smtp')dnl
MAILER(`procmail')
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------

submit.mc trimmed
egrep ^(#|dnl|^$) submit.mc

------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------

divert(-1)dnl
divert(0)dnl
define(`_USE_ETC_MAIL_')dnl
include(`/usr/share/sendmail/cf/m4/cf.m4')dnl
VERSIONID(`$Id: submit.mc, v 8.15.2-22ubuntu3 2021-12-09 00:18:01 cowboy Exp $')
OSTYPE(`debian')dnl
DOMAIN(`debian-msp')dnl
FEATURE(`msp', `[127.0.0.1]', `25')dnl
------- ------- ---=--- ------- -------

Harry Putnam wrote:

> What are the default settings? Do you mean as my OS would install
> sendmail it should just work from there?

No, I meant the compilation features as you asked about ./Build

> Its just a handy way to experiment with software and not accidently
> mess up my system. Steer the install away from the expected
> directories and set PATH to find it when testing

That is unlikely to work for sendmail, most programs "know"
the path.

Installing sendmail "elsewhere" is as simple as copying the binary
to the directory for your choice. In most cases you don't need
other programs.

> It's really not important to current discussion. Probably best to just
> drop it.

Yes, unless you have a good reason to compile sendmail with other
options -- almost everything can be configured at runtime.

> mail host is "uw.local.lan" (not a recognized FQDN)

See cf/README: WHO AM I?
You might want to use an "official" hostname.

> 050 >>> AUTH PLAIN

Oops, it seems you posted your authentication credentials :-(
You should change those ASAP.

> 050 551 5.7.1 Not authorised to send from this header address
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

based on this error the problem is NOT about the envelope sender
but the header:
From: ...
Do you use an "official" (valid) address there?
Check your setup: what is used there?

I get this kind of error from some e-mail providers when I try to
use a different domain than the "official" address which was given
by them to me.

--
Note: please read the netiquette before posting. I will almost never
reply to top-postings which include a full copy of the previous
article(s) at the end because it's annoying, shows that the poster
is too lazy to trim his article, and it's wasting the time of all readers.