MH-TAILOR(5mh)

💖 mh-tailor, mts.conf — mail transport configuration for nmh 💖

okay bestie, pull up a chair, we're reading MH-TAILOR(5mh) together and honestly? it's giving "settings file that runs the whole show" ✨ it lives in section 5 of the mh manual, and it's all about mts.conf 🎀

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🌸 NAME 🌸

mh-tailor, mts.conf — mail transport configuration for nmh message handler 🦋

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so the file /etc/nmh/mts.conf is where you define run-time options for all the nmh programs that interact — in some form — with the message transport system 💌 rn those user programs are: ap, inc, msgchk, post, rcvdist, and rcvpack. periodt.

each option gets one single line, no sprawling, no multitasking 🙅‍♀️ blank lines are ignored, and so is anything that starts with # (that's your comment vibe, queen).

here's every option, with its default value and what it actually means 👇

• mts: — the mail transport method you wanna use. three acceptable options: smtp (which is the default, iconic), sendmail/smtp, and sendmail/pipe.
  • if you use smtp, that enables a direct SMTP interface in nmh. when you send mail, instead of handing the message off to the mail transport agent, post opens a socket connection to the mail port on the machine named in the servers entry 🔌
  • if you use sendmail/smtp, then post sends messages by forking a local copy of sendmail. it'll still speak SMTP with that local copy of sendmail 🗣️ and for backward compatibility, sendmail/smtp can be abbreviated to just sendmail.
  • the third one, sendmail/pipe, also forks a local copy of sendmail, but it feeds the message directly to it using sendmail -t. this replaces the old, undocumented spost mechanism and keeps some of its limitations, like no support for the Dcc: header field — as described in the send and post manual pages. so like, know what you're signing up for 💀
• localname: — the hostname nmh considers local. it should typically be a fully qualified hostname. if this isn't set, depending on your version of Unix, nmh will query the system for this value (e.g. uname, gethostname, etc.) and attempt to fully qualify it 🏠
  • if you're using POP to retrieve new messages, you might wanna set this to the name of the POP server, so that outgoing messages look like they originated on the POP server 👀
• localdomain: — if this is set, a . followed by this string gets appended to your hostname.
  • you should only need this if, for some reason, nmh can't fully qualify the hostname returned by the system (e.g. uname, gethostname, etc.) 🫠
• clientname: — this specifies the host name nmh will give in the SMTP HELO (and EHLO) command when posting mail. if it's not set, the default is to use the host name nmh considers local (see localname above 👆). if this option is set, but empty, then no HELO command will be given 🙈
  • and even though the HELO command is required by RFC 821, lots of SMTP servers don't require it. early versions of SendMail will fail if the hostname in the HELO command is the local host. later versions of SendMail will complain if you omit the HELO command 😭 if you run SendMail, find out what your system expects and set this field if needed.
• systemname: — this one is only used for UUCP mail. it specifies the name of the local host in the UUCP "domain". if not set, depending on your version of Unix, nmh will query the system for this value 📮 this has no equivalent in the nmh configuration file.
• mmdfldir: /var/mail — the directory where mail drops are kept 🗂️ if this option is set but empty, the user's home directory is used. this overrides the default value chosen at the time of compilation.
• mmdflfil: — the name of the mail drop file inside the directory where mail drops are kept. if this is empty, the user's login name is used. this overrides the default value (which is empty) 📭
• spoollocking: fcntl — the locking algorithm to use when opening the mail drop 🔒 can be any one of the following:
  • fcntl
  • dot
  • flock
  • lockf
• maildelivery: /usr/lib/mh/maildelivery — the name of the system-wide default maildelivery file 📬 see slocal(1) for the details.

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📡 SMTP support 📡

this option is only available if you set mts to smtp.

• servers: localhost — a single hostname to be used when performing mail submission via SMTP 🌐 previous versions of nmh supported multiple hostnames for servers, but the current version of nmh only supports a single entry (the name is kept for backwards compatibility reasons, bless). this can be overridden via the -server switch to send(1). it is not possible to change the mail submission port number in the servers entry — see the -port switch to send(1) for that functionality 👑

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📨 SendMail 📨

this option is only available if you set mts to sendmail/smtp or sendmail/pipe.

• sendmail: /usr/sbin/sendmail — the pathname to the sendmail program 📮

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🏤 Post Office Protocol 🏤

• pophost: — the name of the default POP service host. if this isn't set, then nmh looks in the standard mail drop areas for waiting mail; otherwise, the named POP service host is consulted 📥

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🔐 File Locking 🔐

a few words on locking, bestie, because this part matters:

nmh has two main uses for locking — locking the mail spool during mail incorporation, and locking metadata files (sequence files, the context) during updates. these locking methods can be configured separately from each other 🧠

for locking the mail spool, the spoollocking entry in mh-tailor(5) controls the locking algorithm to use when inc incorporates mail from the spool file. if no entry is given, a default based on the operating system type will be chosen 💫

for locking all other files, the datalocking entry in mh-profile(5) controls the locking algorithm used for all other file access. if no entry is given, the fcntl lock method will be chosen.

if you don't wish to use kernel-based locking, dot locking is an option available to you 💅 if --enable-lockdir=directory is not specified at build time, lock files will be created in the directory where the file being locked resides. otherwise, lock files will be created in the directory specified by --enable-lockdir 📁

before installing nmh, you should see how locking is done at your site, and set the appropriate values. no cap, do this 🙏

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🗂️ FILES 🗂️

• /etc/nmh/mts.conf — nmh mts configuration file

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🪞 PROFILE COMPONENTS 🪞

None — yeah, literally none, that's the whole vibe 🍓

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

mh-mts(8), post(8), send(8) — go read those too, they're the supporting cast 💜

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🎀 DEFAULTS 🎀

as listed above ☝️ the path of the mail transport configuration file can be changed with the MHMTSCONF environment variable and augmented with the MHMTSUSERCONF environment variable — see mh-profile(5) 🌈

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💀 BUGS 💀

failure to open any mail transport configuration file is silently ignored 😶 (not even a peep, it's giving ghosting). therefore, it's best to avoid dynamically creating such a file with the intent of using it via the MHMTSCONF or MHMTSUSERCONF environment variables. if you absolutely must do that, the ability to successfully open the file should first be verified ✅

fr fr, verify first. silent failure will humble you 🙈

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okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate this 💖 stay locked, stay configured, and remember: one option per line, always 💅

this was nmh-1.8, dated 2017-02-19 — mwah, love u, bye 🦋✨