1.2 Command-Line Switches

-B 7bit

Causes sendmail to clear the high-bit of every incoming byte, or 8bitmime, which causes sendmail to preserve the high-bit (see §36.7.1).

-ba

Uses ARPAnet/Grey-Book protocols to transfer mail (see §36.7.3).

-bD

Runs as a daemon (just as with -bd below), but doesn't fork and doesn't detach from the controlling terminal (see §36.7.4).

-bd

Forks, detaches from the controlling terminal, and runs as a daemon, listening for incoming SMTP connections and handling them as they arrive (see §36.7.5).

-bH

Purges (zeroes) persistent host status information (see §36.7.6).

-bh

Prints persistent host status information (see §36.7.7).

-bi

Initializes the aliases(5) databases (see §24.5.1).

-bm

(The default) causes sendmail to read a message from its standard input and to send the read message (see §36.7.9).

-bp

Prints the contents of the queue (see §23.4).

-bs

Runs SMTP on standard I/O (see §36.7.11).

-bt

Runs in rule-testing mode (see 38.1).

-bv root bob

Verifies the addresses root and bob (see §36.7.13).

-C /tmp/test.cf

Uses /tmp/test.cf as its configuration file (see §36.7.15).

-c

Sets the HoldExpensive option to true (see §34.8.29).

-d0.4

Debugging mode to facility 0, level 4 (see §37.1).

-F 'Jolly Roger'

Sets the sender's full name to Jolly Roger (see §36.7.20).

-f [email protected]

Sets sender's address to [email protected] (see §36.7.21).

-h 20

Sets the minimum hop count to 20 (see §36.7.22).

-i

Sets the IgnoreDots option to true (see §36.7.24).

-MrUUCP

Gives the macro $r the value UUCP (see §31.2).

-m

Sets the MeToo option to true (see §34.8.39).

-N never

Says to never return DSN NOTIFY information when a message bounces (see §36.7.28). Can also be -Nsuccess,failure,delay to give notification on successful delivery, failed delivery, or delayed delivery.

-n

Suppresses aliasing (see §24.6).

-OMaxQueueRunSize=100

Sets the MaxQueueRunSize option to 100 (see §34.1.2).

-oQ/tmp

Sets the QueueDirectory option to /tmp (see §34.1.1).

-pUUCP:sonya

Sets the protocol stored in the $r macro to UUCP and the host stored in the $s macro to sonya (see §36.7.32).

-q30m

Runs sendmail in the background, waking up once every 30 minutes to process the queue (see §23.6.1).

-qR@aol.com

Processes the queue once, delivering to all recipients in any queued message that contains at least one recipient at aol.com (see §23.6.2.3).

-R hdrs

Bounces only the headers of a message. -Rfull bounces headers and body (see §36.7.34).

-r

Is a (deprecated) synonym for -f.

-s

Sets the SaveFromLine option to true (deprecated, see §34.8.59).

-T 5d

Sets the Timeout.queuereturn option to 5 days (see §34.8.52).

-t

Gathers the list of recipients from the message's headers (see §36.7.38).

-U

Makes this the initial MUA to MTA submission (see §36.7.39).

-V cookie9167B5AS34

Sets the DSN ENVID string to cookie9167B5AS34 (see §36.7.40).

-v

Runs in verbose mode (see §36.7.41).

-X /var/tmp/smtp.trace

Logs both sides of all SMTP transactions to the /var/tmp/smtp.trace file (see §26.4).