Sendmail

[mikebw at bilow.bilow.uu.ids.net (Mike Bilow)]

Jerry A Clabaugh wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:

 JAC> I've been able to RTFM for most unix packages, but Sendmail
 JAC> has me stymied. Just for starters, how do you find out what
 JAC> version of Sendmail you're running?  My box at work has
 JAC> Sendmail which was installed when I installed SuSE Linux, so
 JAC> I don't know a priori. 

Sendmail is a world unto itself.  You really need the O'Reilly "Sendmail" book;
make sure you get the second edition.

There are four methods I can think of to get the version number.

1. Start or restart Sendmail, and read the message in the log file:

Apr 21 00:01:49 x sendmail[9449]: restarting /usr/sbin/sendmail on signal
Apr 21 00:01:50 x sendmail[5832]: starting daemon (8.9.1):
SMTP+queueing at 00:15:00

2. Telnet into port 25 on the machine where Sendmail is listening:

0:04 x:~# telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 X.ARCHER.NET ESMTP Sendmail 8.9.1/8.8.8-BILOW; Wed, 21 Apr 1999 00:04:11
-0400
QUIT
221 X.ARCHER.NET closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

The default greeting message contains "$v/$Z", where the "v" macro is the
internal version number of the binary and the "Z" macro is the version number
set in the "sendmail.cf" file.  These may be completely unrelated.

3. Start Sendmail from the console in rule testing mode (with the "-bt" switch)
and print the value of the "v" macro (with the "$v" command):

0:07 x:~# sendmail -bt
ADDRESS TEST MODE (ruleset 3 NOT automatically invoked)
Enter <ruleset> <address>
> $v
8.9.1
> 

(Note that you exit rule testing mode with Ctrl-D).

4. If really desperate because, say, Sendmail will not even run, try searching
through the binary for a likely string match:

0:10 x:~# strings /usr/sbin/sendmail | grep '^8\.'
8.9.1

If none of these methods work, you have bigger problems than I can help with!
 
-- Mike


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