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MH-TAILOR(5mh) MH-TAILOR(5mh)

NAME
mh-tailor, mts.conf - mail transport configuration for nmh message handler

DESCRIPTION
The file /etc/nmh/mts.conf defines run-time options for those nmh programs which interact (in
some form) with the message transport system. At present, these (user) programs are: ap,
inc, msgchk, post, rcvdist, and rcvpack.

Each option should be given on a single line. Blank lines and lines which begin with `#' are
ignored. The options available along with default values and a description of their meanings
are listed below:

mts:
The mail transport method to use. The three acceptable options are smtp (which is the
default), sendmail/smtp, and sendmail/pipe.

If you use smtp, this will enable a direct SMTP interface in nmh. When sending mail,
instead of passing the message to the mail transport agent, post will open a socket con‐
nection to the mail port on the machine specified in the servers entry.

If you use sendmail/smtp, then post will send messages by forking a local copy of send‐‐
mail. It will still speak SMTP with this local copy of sendmail. For backward compati‐
bility, sendmail/smtp can be abbreviated to sendmail.

The third alternative, sendmail/pipe, also forks a local copy of sendmail but feeds the
message directly to it, using sendmail -t. This replaces the old, undocumented spost
mechanism and retains some of its limitations, such as lack of support for the -whom
switch and “Dcc:” header field.

localname:
The hostname nmh considers local. It should typically be a fully qualified hostname.
If this is not set, depending on the version of Unix you're running, nmh will query the
system for this value (e.g. uname, gethostname, etc.), and attempt to fully qualify this
value.

If you are using POP to retrieve new messages, you may want to set this value to the
name of the POP server, so that outgoing messages appear to have originated on the POP
server.

localdomain:
If this is set, a `.' followed by this string will be appended to your hostname.

This should only be needed, if for some reason nmh is not able to fully qualify the
hostname returned by the system (e.g. uname, gethostname, etc.).

clientname:
This option specifies the host name that nmh will give in the SMTP HELO (and EHLO) com‐
mand, when posting mail. If not set, the default is to use the host name that nmh con‐
siders local (see localname above). If this option is set, but empty, no HELO command
will be given.

Although the HELO command is required by RFC 821, many SMTP servers do not require it.
Early versions of SendMail will fail if the hostname given in the HELO command is the
local host. Later versions of SendMail will complain if you omit the HELO command. If
you run SendMail, find out what your system expects and set this field if needed.

systemname:
This option is only used for UUCP mail. It specifies the name of the local host in the
UUCP “domain”. If not set, depending on the version of Unix you're running, nmh will
query the system for this value. This has no equivalent in the nmh configuration file.

mmdfldir: /var/mail
The directory where mail drops are kept. If this option is set, but empty, the user's
home directory is used. This overrides the default value chosen at the time of compila‐
tion.

mmdflfil:
The name of the mail drop file in the directory where mail drops are kept. If this is
empty, the user's login name is used. This overrides the default value (which is
empty).

spoollocking: fcntl
The locking algorithm to use when opening the mail drop. Can be any one of the follow‐
ing:

fcntl dot flock lockf

maildelivery: /usr/lib/mh/maildelivery
The name of the system-wide default maildelivery file. See slocal(1) for the details.

SMTP support
This option is only available if you set mts to smtp.

servers: localhost
A single hostname to be used when performing mail submission via SMTP. Previous ver‐
sions of nmh supported multiple hostnames for servers, but the current version of nmh
only supports a single entry (the name is kept for backwards compatibility reasons).
This can be overridden via the -server switch to send(1). It is not possible to change
the mail submission port number in the servers entry; see the -port switch to send(1)
for this functionality.

SendMail
This option is only available if you set mts to sendmail.

sendmail: /usr/sbin/sendmail
The pathname to the sendmail program.

Post Office Protocol
pophost:
The name of the default POP service host. If this is not set, then nmh looks in the
standard mail drop areas for waiting mail, otherwise the named POP service host is con‐
sulted.

File Locking
A few words on locking: nmh has two main uses for locking: locking the mail spool during mail
incorporation, and locking metadata files (sequence files, the context) during updates.
These locking methods can be configured separately from each other.

For locking the mail spool, the spoollocking entry in mh-tailor(5) will control the locking
algorithm to use when inc incorporates mail from the spool file. If no entry is given, a de‐
fault based on the operating system type will be chosen.

For locking all other files, the datalocking entry in mh-profile(5) controls the locking al‐
gorithm used for all other file access. If no entry is given, the fcntl lock method will be
chosen.

If you do not wish to use kernel-based locking, dot locking is an option available. If
“--enable-lockdir=directory” is not specified at build time, lock files will be created in
the directory where the file being locked resides. Otherwise, lock files will be created in
the directory specified by “--enable-lockdir”.

Prior to installing nmh, you should see how locking is done at your site, and set the appro‐
priate values.

FILES
/etc/nmh/mts.conf nmh mts configuration file

PROFILE COMPONENTS
None