The sendmail program has a built-in understanding of many
header names. How those names are used is determined
by a set of flags in the source file conf.c supplied with the source
distribution.
Site policy determines which flags are applied to which headers,
but, in general, conf.c applies them in the way that is
best suited for almost all Internet sites.
If you desire to redefine the flags
for a particular header name, look for the name's declaration
in the C language structure definition HdrInfo
in conf.c.
Be sure to read the comments in that file. Changes
to header flags represent a permanent site policy change and should
not be undertaken lightly.
(We illustrate this process after explaining the flags.)
The flags that determine header use are listed in
Table 35.2.
Note that each flag name is prefixed with an H_
.
Also note that the hexadecimal values are displayed by the
-d31.6
debugging switch (see Section 37.5.114, -d31.6).
Flag | Hex | Version | Description | |
---|---|---|---|---|
H_EOH | 0x0001 | Section 35.5.1, "H_EOH" | V5 and up | Terminates all headers |
H_RCPT | 0x0002 | Section 35.5.2, "H_RCPT" | V5 and up | Contains a recipient address |
H_DEFAULT | 0x0004 | Section 35.5.3, "H_DEFAULT" | V5 and up | If already in headers, don't insert |
H_RESENT | 0x0008 | Section 35.5.4, "H_RESENT" | V5 and up | Is a |
H_CHECK | 0x0010 | Section 35.5.5, "H_CHECK" | V5 and up | Process |
H_ACHECK | 0x0020 | Section 35.5.6, "H_ACHECK" | V5 and up | Ditto, but always, not just default |
H_FORCE | 0x0040 | Section 35.5.7, "H_FORCE" | V5 and up | Insert header (allows duplicates) |
H_TRACE | 0x0080 | Section 35.5.8, "H_TRACE" | V5 and up | Count these to get the hop count |
H_FROM | 0x0100 | Section 35.5.9, "H_FROM" | V5 and up | Contains a sender address |
H_VALID | 0x0200 | Section 35.5.10, "H_VALID" | V5 and up | Has a validated field value |
H_ERRSTO | 0x0800 | Section 35.5.11, "H_ERRSTO" | V8.6 and up | An |
H_CTE | 0x1000 | Section 35.5.12, "H_CTE" | V8.7 and up | Is "constant transfer encoding" |
H_CTYPE | 0x2000 | Section 35.5.13, "H_CTYPE" | V8.7 and up | Is "content type" |
H_BCC | 0x4000 | Section 35.5.14, "H_BCC" | V8.7 and up | Strip value from header |
H_ENCODABLE | 0x8000 | Section 35.5.15, "H_ENCODABLE" | V8.8 and up | Field can be RFC1522 encoded |
Note that there is no flag that always causes a particular header to be removed, nor is there a flag that always causes a particular header to be replaced (although you can trick sendmail with H_ACHECK see Section 35.5.16, "Replacing Headers with H_ACHECK").
Headers that are marked with the H_EOH flag cause sendmail to immediately stop all header processing and treat the rest of the header lines as message body. This is useful for separating RFC822-compliant header lines from headers created by a noncompliant network.
Headers that are marked with the H_RCPT flag are assumed to contain valid recipient
addresses in their fields. Only headers with this flag can lead
to message delivery.
These addresses will be rewritten. These headers are used to
determine the recipient address only if the -t
command-line switch (see Section 36.7.38, -t)
is used.
The sendmail program automatically sets the H_DEFAULT flag for
all headers declared in the configuration file.
This flag tells sendmail to macro expand the header just before
it is used.
Only one of each header that is marked with this flag is allowed to exist
in the headers portion of a mail message. If such a header
already exists, sendmail does not add another.
The H_FORCE and H_TRACE flags override this flag in that regard.
This flag must never be specified in conf.c - it is set automatically
by H
configuration command (see Section 35.1, "The H Configuration Command").
The H_RESENT flag tells sendmail that the header line is prefixed
with the resent-
string. Only headers that are marked with this flag
can tell sendmail that this is a "forwarded" message.
If no "forwarded" headers are found, sendmail strips
any bogus resent-
header lines from the message's header.
If a header definition in the configuration file begins with
a ?
flags
?
conditional, this flag is set
for that header. It tells sendmail to insert this
header only if one of its ?
flags
?
corresponds
to one of the delivery agent's F=
flags (see Section 35.4, "?flags? in Header Definitions").
This flag must never be specified in conf.c - it is set
automatically when sendmail reads H
lines with
?
flags
?
header flags.
The H_ACHECK flag marks a header that should normally be discarded unless
a delivery agent's F=
flag calls for its inclusion.
It is usually set for the Bcc:
header, which is
discarded for the privacy of a blind carbon copy list, and
the Full-Name:
header, which is intended as a way
for a user to add a full name (see the $x
macro, Section 31.10.42) when there
is no full name defined in the passwd(5) file.
Note that H_ACHECK, when combined with bogus ?
flags
?
of a header configuration file declaration
can cause appropriate headers to always be deleted or replaced (see Section 35.5.16).
Also note that under V8 sendmail the H_ACHECK flag
alone always causes a header to be replaced.
The H_FORCE flag causes sendmail to always insert a header. It is used in the conf.c file with selected trace headers. It can be thought of as allowing duplicates. That is, the header will be inserted even if one like it is already present.
Headers that are marked with the H_TRACE flag are counted in determining a mail message's "hop" count. This flag is intended for use in the conf.c file.
Headers that are marked with the H_FROM flag are assumed to contain a valid sender address. This flag is intended for use in the conf.c file.
The H_VALID flag is set and cleared internally by sendmail to indicate to itself that a particular header line has been correctly processed and can now be used as is. This flag should never be used in the conf.c file.
The H_ERRSTO flag specifies which headers can be used
for returning error notification mail. Those headers take priority
over all others for that notification if the UseErrorsTo
(l
)
option is true (see Section 34.8.74, UseErrorsTo (l)).
The H_CTE flag specifies that a header is the MIME RFC1521 content transfer encoding header (see Section 35.10.8, Content-Transfer-Encoding:).
The H_CTYPE flag specifies that a header is a MIME RFC1521 content-type header (see Section 35.10.9, Content-Type:).
The H_BCC flag indicates that a header is either
a Bcc:
(see Section 35.10.4, Bcc:) or a Resent-Bcc:
header.
The disposition of those headers is covered under
the NoRecipient-Action
option
(see Section 34.8.43, NoRecipientAction).
The H_ENCODABLE flag tells sendmail that the field part may be encoded in the way described in RFC1522. As of V8.8, this flag is unsupported in code.
Some MUAs tend to insert their own Message-ID:
header (see Section 35.10.19, Message-ID:).
This can cause difficulty tracing email problems, because
those MUA headers lack the sendmail queue identifier.
One solution is possible at sites that have a central mail hub
machine. At such a site, all the client machines use a simple
configuration file that forwards all mail to the hub for processing.
To delete the bogus Message-ID:
, so that a good one will be
generated on the hub, you can redefine Message-ID:
in
conf.c:
"message-id", 0, "message-id", H_ACHECK, change to this
Here, we changed the 0
flag for the Message-ID:
header
into a H_ACHECK flag. We do this only on the client machine
versions of sendmail but not on the hub.
The Message-ID:
header will then be stripped
from every outgoing message on every client machine and
created (if missing) on the hub.