2.6 Test It

Just to make sure that sendmail built correctly, test it with the following arguments:

% ./sendmail -d0.1 -bt < /dev/null
Version 8.8.4
Compiled with:   LOG MATCHGECOS NETINET NETUNIX NEWDB USERDB XDEBUG
SYSTEM IDENTITY (after readcf):
            (short domain name) $w = here.us.edu
        (canonical domain name) $j = $w
               (subdomain name) $m = us.edu
                    (node name) $k = here

Pay no attention to the $ variables for now. They will be clarified a few chapters later. For now, just observe that sendmail ran, printed its version (and some other identifying information), and exited without error.

If, instead of running, sendmail hangs, you will have to go back to Section 2.4.2, "Eliminate DNS Support" and redefine NAMED_BIND. If your site has never run sendmail before, you will get a complaint like this:

/etc/sendmail.cf: line 0: cannot open: No such file or directory

This shows that sendmail ran but couldn't find its configuration file. If your site is new to sendmail, you won't be able to run the examples to follow. But don't worry, we'll be creating a configuration file of our own soon enough.

Another problem that might happen on a machine running an old (pre-V8) version of sendmail is the following:

/etc/sendmail.cf: line 273: replacement $3 out of bounds
/etc/sendmail.cf: line 297: replacement $3 out of bounds

If this happens, you will still be able to run sendmail to follow along in early examples. Just bear in mind that you will be seeing these errors until we start designing our own configuration file.