2 # INSTALL -- installation instructions
8 Please read all of the following instructions before you begin
11 You should check the MACHINES file to see if there are any specific
12 build instructions for your operating system. To build nmh, you will
13 need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.
15 0) If you have obtained nmh by checking it out of CVS, you will
16 need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some files.
17 (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in'
18 then this has already been done and you do not need to do it.)
19 You can regenerate the files by running the command
23 (Note that if you're doing nmh development, you should look at
24 docs/README.developers, since there is other developer-friendly
25 advice there as well.)
27 1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
31 This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
32 include file config.h, as well as the various Makefiles.
34 The configure script accepts various options. The options of
35 most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
36 of all available options, you can run
40 2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
41 of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
42 want to customize some #defines for your environment.
48 Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
49 the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
50 overwritten without any warning. The only directory that isn't
51 true for is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the previous
52 copy of each <file> will be backed up as <file>.prev if it differs
53 from the newly-installed copy. Watch for any diff output while
54 make is processing that directory to see if you need to merge
55 changes from *.prev files into the new versions.
57 5) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory)
58 and make any necessary changes for the mail transport interface
61 The default `mts.conf' file assumes you retrieve new mail from
62 a local (or NFS mounted) maildrop, and send outgoing mail by
63 injecting the message to a mail transfer agent (such as sendmail)
64 on the local machine via SMTP.
66 If, instead, all your mail sending and receiving occurs on a
67 remote POP/SMTP server, you will need to look at the values of the
68 variables "localname", "pophost", and "servers":
70 a) "localname" defines the hostname that nmh considers local.
71 If not set, then nmh queries your OS for this value. You will
72 want to change this if you wish your e-mail to appear as if it
73 originated on the POP server.
75 b) "pophost" defines the server that runs the POP daemon, and to
76 which `inc' and `msgchk' will always query for new mail.
78 c) "servers" defines the server to which you send outgoing SMTP
81 If you compile with POP support, but don't want to use it exclusively,
82 you can use the `-host' and `-user' options to `inc' and `msgchk'
83 rather than hardcoding pophost in `mts.conf'.
85 Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available options
86 for this file ("masquerade" may be of particular interest).
88 6) If you have enabled POP support, make sure that `pop3' (or more
89 precisely the value of the define POPSERVICE in config.h) is defined
90 in the /etc/services file (or its NIS/NIS+ equivalent) on the client
91 machine. It should be something equivalent to "110/tcp". This might
92 have already been done when the POP daemon was installed.
94 7) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory).
95 This file contains the default profile entries for the nmh command
96 `mhn' and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'. This script
97 will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for programs to
98 handle various content types (for example, xv to display images).
99 You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored path. You may
100 want to re-run this script later if you install new programs to
101 display content. An example of this is:
104 % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
106 and then move `mhn.defaults' into the nmh `etc' directory.
108 The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
109 If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
110 to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
111 described in the man page for `mhn', and in section 9.4 of the book
112 "MH & xmh: Email for Users and Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek,
113 on the Internet at <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/mh/confmhn.htm>.
115 9) Add an optional global mh.profile, if desired. This profile should be
116 placed in the nmh `etc' directory with the name `mh.profile'. This
117 file will be used to construct the initial .mh_profile of a new nmh
118 user, but will not be consulted after that.
120 -----------------------------------------------
121 Compiler options, or using a different compiler
122 -----------------------------------------------
123 By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can use a
124 different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or linking that
125 the "configure" script does not know about, by either editing the user
126 configuration section of the top level Makefile (after running configure)
127 or giving "configure" initial values for these variables by setting them
128 in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell (such as sh,ksh,zsh),
130 you can do that on the command line like this:
131 CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix ./configure
133 Or on systems that have the "env" program, you can do it like this:
134 env CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-s ./configure
136 ----------------------------------------
137 Building nmh on additional architectures
138 ----------------------------------------
139 To build nmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
140 This should restore the nmh source distribution back to its original
141 state. You can then configure nmh as above on other architectures in
142 which you wish to build nmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
143 build directory for each architecture.
145 ---------------------------------
146 Using a different build directory
147 ---------------------------------
148 You can compile the nmh in a different directory from the one containing
149 the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
150 architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
151 "make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
152 the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
153 run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
154 source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
156 cd /usr/local/solaris/nmh
157 /usr/local/src/nmh-1.0/configure
160 ---------------------
161 Options for configure
162 ---------------------
163 --prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/nmh)
164 This will change the base prefix for the installation location
165 for the various parts of nmh. Unless overridden, nmh is installed
166 in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
168 --bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
169 nmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
171 --libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
172 nmh's support binaries (post, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
174 --sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
175 nmh's config files (mts.conf, mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
177 --mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
178 nmh's man pages are installed here.
181 Enable debugging support.
183 --enable-masquerade[='draft_from mmailid username_extension']
184 If this option is disabled, the mts.conf file will contain the
185 line "masquerade: " (with no value), which may be manually edited
186 later. You may find it convenient to specify a value at
187 configure-time, however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled,
188 the right value will be there. By default, it is enabled.
190 The above usage shows the default, with all three masquerade
191 options being specified. Any subset of the three may be
194 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "masquerade:".
196 --enable-mhe (DEFAULT)
197 Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
200 Enable client-side support for pop.
203 Enable client-side support for apop (Authenticated POP).
205 --with-editor=EDITOR (DEFAULT is vi)
206 specify the full path of the default editor to use. If this
207 option is not given, then the configuration process will search
208 for the `vi' command and use it as the default. If you wish to
209 specify an interface which is compatible with MH, then use the
210 nmh command `prompter'. If you specify `prompter', then you don't
211 need to give the full pathname.
214 Specify the location of Hesiod.
217 Specify the location of Kerberos V4 for KPOP support. After
218 running configure, you will need to change the POPSERVICE #define in
219 config.h if you want to use KPOP exclusively (rather than being able
220 to switch between KPOP and normal POP3). See the comments inside
221 config.h for details.
223 --with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
224 Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
225 "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
226 "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
227 requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
228 creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
231 In order to be effective, you should contact the site
232 administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
233 mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
234 reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
235 is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
238 --with-mts=MTS (DEFAULT is smtp)
239 Specify the default mail transport system you want to use. The two
240 acceptable options are "smtp" (which is the default), and
241 "sendmail". This value will be put into the mts.conf file. You
242 may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
243 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will
246 If you use "smtp", this will enable a direct SMTP (simple mail
247 transport protocol) interface in nmh. When sending mail, instead
248 of passing the message to the mail transport agent, `post' will
249 open a socket connection to the mail port on the machine specified
250 in the `mts.conf' file (default is localhost), and speak SMTP
253 If you use "sendmail", then `post' will send messages by forking a
254 local copy of sendmail. Currently it will still speak SMTP with
255 this local copy of sendmail.
257 If you wish to use a transport agent other than sendmail, you will
258 need to use a `sendmail wrapper'.
260 --with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
261 --with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
262 Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
263 to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
264 will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
265 option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
266 makes the wrong choice.
268 If either of these options is given then the other must also be
271 --with-pager=PAGER (DEFAULT is more)
272 Specify the default pager (file lister) to use. If this option
273 is not given, then the configuration process will search for the
274 command `more' and use it as the default.
276 --with-smtpservers='SMTPSERVER1[ SMTPSERVER2...]' (DEFAULT is localhost)
277 If this option is not specified, the mts.conf file will contain
278 the line "servers: localhost", which may be manually edited later.
279 You may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
280 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will be
283 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "servers:".
287 nmh-workers@nongnu.org