The special notation :include:
in the right-hand side
of an alias causes sendmail to read its list of recipients
from an external file.
For that directive to be recognized as special, any address that
begins with :include:
must select the local
delivery agent.
This is automatic with most configuration files but not with others.
If your configuration file does not automatically recognize the
:include:
directive, you will need to add a new rule
near the end of your rule set 0 (see Section 29.6, "Rule Set 0"). For example,
R:include:$* $@ $#local $: :include:$1
Beginning with V8.7 sendmail,
any delivery agent for which the F=:
flag (see Section 30.8.7, F=:)
is set can also process :include:
files.
(Note that eliminating the F=:
flag for all delivery agent definitions
in your configuration file will disable this feature entirely.)
The :include:
directive is used in aliases(5) files like
this:
localname: :include:/path
The expression :include:
is literal. It must appear exactly
as shown, colons and all,
with no space between the colons and the "include."
As with any right-hand side of an alias, there may be
space between the alias colon and the lead colon of the :include:
.
The /path
is the full pathname of a file
containing a list of recipients. It follows
the :include:
with intervening space allowed.
The /path
should be a full pathname.
If it is a relative name (such as ../file), it is relative
to the sendmail queue directory. For all but V8 sendmail,
the /path
must not be quoted.
If it is quoted, the quotation marks are interpreted
as part of the filename.
For V8 sendmail, the /path
may be quoted, and the quotation
marks are automatically stripped.
If the /path
cannot be opened for reading for any reason, sendmail
prints the following warning and ignores any recipients that might
have been in the file:
:include: path... Cannot open path: reason
Here, reason is "no such file or directory," "permission
denied," or something similar. If /path
exists and can be
read, sendmail reads it one line at a time. Empty lines are
ignored. Beginning with V8 sendmail, lines that begin with
a #
character are also ignored:
addr # a comment empty line is ignored addr2
Each line in the :include:
file is treated as a list
of one or more recipient addresses. Where there is more than
one, each should be separated from the others by commas.
addr1 addr2, addr3, addr4
The addresses may themselves be
aliases that appear to the left in the aliases file. They
may also be user addresses, program names, or filenames.
A :include:
file may also contain additional
:include:
lists:
engineers to an alias biff, bill@otherhost to two recipients |"/etc/local/loglists thislist" to a program alias /usr/local/archive/thislist.hist to a file :include:/yet/another/file from another file
Beginning with V8.7 sendmail,
the TimeOut.fileopen
option (see Section 34.8.70, Timeout (r))
controls how long sendmail should wait for the open to
complete. This is useful when files are remotely mounted
as with NFS. This timeout encompasses both this open and
the security checks described next.
Note that the NFS file system must be soft mounted (or mounted with
the intr
option) for this to work.
Beginning with V8, sendmail checks the file for security. If the controlling user is root, all components of the path leading to the file are also checked. [2] If the suid bit of the file is set (telling sendmail to run as owner of the file), sendmail checks to be sure that the file is writable only by the owner. If it is group- or world-writable, sendmail silently ignores that suid bit. When checking components of the path, sendmail will print the following warning if it is running as root and if any component of the path is group- or world-writable:
[2] The sendmail program also performs this check for critical system files, such as its configuration file.
WARNING: writable directory offending component
This process is described in greater detail under the -d44
debugging switch (see Section 37.5.159, -d44.4), which can also be used to
observe this process.
After sendmail opens the /path
for reading but
before it reads the file, it sets the controlling user
to be the owner of the file
(if one is not already set and provided that file ownership cannot be
given away with chown(1)).
The controlling
user provides the uid and gid
identities of the sender when delivering
mail from the queue (see Section 23.9.2, C line).
The :include:
file can neither deliver through programs nor append to files
if any of three situations is true:
if the owner of the :include:
file has a shell that is not
listed in /etc/shells (see Section 22.8.4, "The /etc/shells file"),
if the :include:
file is world-writable,
or if the :include:
file is group-writable and the
UnsafeGroupWrites
option (see Section 34.8.73, UnsafeGroupWrites) is true.
IDA and V8 sendmail allow comments
in :include:
files. Comment lines begin
with a #
character. If the #
doesn't begin the line,
it is treated as the beginning of an address, thus allowing valid usernames
that begin with a #
(such as #1user
) to
appear first in a line by prefixing them with a space:
# Management a comment frida george@wash.dc.gov # Staff a comment ben steve #1user an address
Note that since comments and empty lines are ignored by sendmail, they can be used to create attractive, well-documented mailing lists.
Under older versions of sendmail, comments can be emulated through the use of RFC822-style comments:
( comment )
By surrounding the comment
in parentheses, you cause
sendmail to view it and the parentheses as an RFC-style comment
and ignore them:
( Management ) frida george@wash.dc.gov ( Staff ) ben steve
This form of comment works with both the old and new sendmail programs.
As has been noted, the aliases file
should be writable only by root for security reasons.
Therefore, ordinary
users, such as nonprivileged department heads, cannot use the
aliases file to create and manage mailing lists.
Fortunately, :include:
files allow ordinary users
(or groups of users) to maintain mailing lists. This offloads
a great deal of work from the system administrator, who
would otherwise have to manage these lists, and
gives users a sense of participation in the system.
Unfortunately, reading :include:
lists is slower than
reading an entry from the aliases database. At busy sites
or sites with numerous mail messages addressed to mailing lists, this
difference in speed can become significant. Note that the -bv
command-line switch (see Section 36.7.13, -bv)
can be used with sendmail to time
and contrast the two different forms of lists.
On the other hand, sometimes rebuilding the aliases(5) database
can also be very slow. In such instances the :include:
file may be faster, since it doesn't require a rebuild each time it changes.
One possible disadvantage to all types of mailing lists is that they are visible to the outside world. This means that anyone in the world can send mail to a local list that is intended for internal use. Many lists are intended for both internal and external use. One such list might be one for discussion of the O'Reilly Nutshell Handbooks, called, say, nuts@ora.com. Anyone inside ora.com and anyone in the outside world can send mail messages to this list, and those messages will be forwarded to everyone on the nuts mailing list.