Updating Your Sendmail Installation

   

Mac OS X originally shipped with sendmail 8.10.2. Unfortunately, at the same time, the sendmail distribution was progressing through the 8.12.x series. Apple rectified this situation with Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), but the fact remains: Apple's distribution has always lagged the official sendmail release. To keep your system as secure as possible, you should pay close attention to the http://www.sendmail.org notices and update your installation manually, if necessary.

CAUTION

Keep in mind that Apple's security updates will likely overwrite your customized sendmail installation, so you should always review the Installer receipts ( /Library/Receipts ) and keep a copy of your configuration files backed up. Alternatively, because Apple's installation uses the standard sendmail file layout, you may wish to create a custom installation layout to avoid having your files overwritten.

If a new version of sendmail becomes available, you can quickly install it on top of the Apple-supplied binary by downloading the latest source distribution (8.12.6 at the time of this writing) and following these instructions.

First unarchive and enter the distribution directory:

 #  tar zxf sendmail.8.12.6.tar.gz   # cd sendmail-8.12.6/  

CAUTION

It is strongly recommended that you review the PGP signature of the sendmail code as described in the CERT advisory (http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-28.html), MacGPG (http://macgpg. sourceforge .net/), or PGP (http://www.pgp.com/). In October 2002, a Trojan horse “infected sendmail was widely distributed, forcing users to take additional steps to verify the integrity of their downloads.

Next , use sh Build to compile the daemon. Sendmail already " knows " about Darwin/Mac OS X, so the compile should progress smoothly:

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# sh Build Making all in: /Users/jray/Desktop/sendmail-8.12.6/libsm Configuration: pfx=, os=Darwin, rel=6.1, rbase=6, rroot=6.1, arch=PowerMacintosh, sfx=, graphics/ccc.gif variant=optimized Using M4=/usr/bin/gm4 Creating /Users/jray/Desktop/sendmail-8.12.6/obj.Darwin.6.1.PowerMacintosh/libsm using / graphics/ccc.gif Users/jray/Desktop/sendmail-8.12.6/devtools/OS/Darwin Making dependencies in sendmail-8.12.6/obj.Darwin.6.1.PowerMacintosh/libsm cp /dev/null sm_os.h ...

Finally, type make install to install the binaries:

 # make install install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 sendmail.0 /usr/share/man/cat8/sendmail.8 install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 sendmail.8 /usr/share/man/man8/sendmail.8 install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 aliases.0 /usr/share/man/cat5/aliases.5 install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 aliases.5 /usr/share/man/man5/aliases.5 install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 mailq.0 /usr/share/man/cat1/mailq.1 install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 mailq.1 /usr/share/man/man1/mailq.1 install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 newaliases.0 /usr/share/man/cat1/newaliases.1 install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 newaliases.1 /usr/share/man/man1/newaliases.1 

You can check your new sendmail installation by typing sendmail -d from the command line. You'll need to type Control-C to break out:

 #  sendmail -d  Version 8.12.6 Compiled with: DNSMAP LOG MAP_REGEX MATCHGECOS MIME7TO8 MIME8TO7                NAMED_BIND NETINET NETINFO NETUNIX NEWDB NIS PIPELINING SCANF                USERDB XDEBUG 

Sendmail Resources

Unfortunately, sendmail is a large application that requires years to master. If you need to create complex configurations, you should invest in a book dedicated to the topic of managing sendmail servers. Here are a few resources that can help you get started:

  • Sendmail , by Bryan Costales and Eric Allman, published by O'Reilly. This is the definitive guide to sendmail. Written by Eric Allman, the original sendmail programmer, this book contains every feature, tip, and trick necessary to tweak sendmail for any configuration.

  • Sendmail: Theory and Practice , by Paul A. Vixie and Frederick M. Avolio. Covers the history and architecture of mail servers, as well as sendmail setup. Useful for gaining a perspective on sendmail and its place as an Internet server.

  • http://www.sendmail.org. The home of your sendmail server software. Updates, FAQs, and documentation can be found here.

  • http://www.sendmail.net. Discussion and articles on the implementation and maintenance of sendmail.

  • http://www.sendmail.org/%7Eca/email/misc.html. Claus ABmann's email software documentation, tips, and links.


   
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Mac OS X Maximum Security
Maximum Mac OS X Security
ISBN: 0672323818
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 158

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