Using This Cookbook
ProblemYou need to use this cookbook in the most effective manner possible. SolutionJump directly to the recipe that addresses your sendmail problem. Follow the steps in your selected recipe. Combine the elements from the selected recipe with your real configuration. Read the Discussion section of your selected recipe and perform the tests shown there to ensure that the recipe works in your operational environment. DiscussionMost books are written as a unit and are intended to be read as a whole. One section transitions to another, one chapter transitions to the next , and a flow is developed to draw you through the book. A cookbook isn't like that. Each recipe is complete unto itself. You don't sit down and read a cookbook from cover to cover. If you did, you would find it repetitious and rather boring (unless you're very hungry!). The sendmail Cookbook is a real cookbook. Don't attempt to read it cover to cover. Instead, go directly to the recipe you need for your specific sendmail problem. The recipes in this book are complete. Follow a recipe, and you have a fully functional configuration that can be tested and verified . Because these are complete, standalone recipes, there is repetition. Every recipe that requires you to rebuild the sendmail.cf file says, "rebuild the sendmail.cf file." It doesn't assume that you have read several other recipes and therefore know when to rebuild the file. However, to reduce the volume of repetition, steps used in many recipes, such as compiling sendmail or building the sendmail.cf file, are covered in detail only once. Subsequent recipes can then refer to these earlier recipes without repeating all of the detailed steps. An effective technique for using these recipes is to first implement the recipe on a small test system. In that way, you can follow the recipe without attempting to merge the features of that recipe with your current configuration until you evaluate the effectiveness of the recipe for your specific problem. After determining that the function used in the recipe is effective for your problem, it can be merged into your operational configuration, retested, and deployed. Many system administrators reading this will say, "Where will I find the time to implement and test a separate sendmail configuration?" Don't worry. The step-by-step recipes in this book can be implemented and tested in a matter of minutes. And any old PC running FreeBSD or Linux will serve as a test system. In fact, most of the recipes in this book were implemented on a Red Hat Linux system. As with all cookbooks, this book is full of recipes for individual dishes. It is your responsibility to select the various recipes you need to create a complete meal. Add the new sendmail configuration features one at a time and test each one as you go. Various configuration features can interact in unexpected ways. Testing the combined configuration is essential. See AlsoThe See Also section of each recipe points to other recipes that may provide additional help. It also points to those sections in the O'Reilly book sendmail , by Bryan Costales with Eric Allman, that provide technical references for the topic covered in the recipe. |
