Mail Administration

The version of sendmail that is included on the release is Version 8 compatible. The new version fixes some security holes and includes several improvements to Version 5. Several extensions to the standard BSD release have been added, including name service switch and NIS+ support.

To further support NIS+, a new command, aliasadm, has been included. The command will aid in the administration of NIS+ alias lists.

The mailbox spooling directory has been moved from /var/spool/mail to /var/mail. A new directory, /var/mail/:saved, is used for creating locks and temporary files by the mailx program. Also, the mail configuration files are now all located in /etc/mail. The new directory includes the aliases and the sendmail.cf files.

The mailbox locking mechanism has been enhanced so that Solaris 2.6 clients can safely mount mailboxes from both Solaris 2.X and SunOS 4.X mail servers. This enhancement eases administration of mail, especially in large sites.

In the Solaris 2.6 release, /usr/bin/mailx supersedes /usr/ucb/mail. The mailx program has been enhanced to behave the same way as the SunOS 4.x version of /usr/ucb/mail. The /usr/ucb/mail file is now a symbolic link to /usr/bin/mailx.

In SunOS 4.X releases, a program called sendmail.mx was used in DNS sites to access mail exchange records. The new version of sendmail includes the needed functionality and can be configured through /etc/nsswitch.conf.

Mail Administration Guide describes the administration of sendmail.