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 the git repository,
16 you will need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some files.
17 (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in' then this
18 has already been done and you do not need to do it.) You can
19 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 If you have obtained nmh in the form of a tar archive and are
28 trying to unpack it with cpio: due to an apparent bug in cpio, it
29 might fail with "Malformed number" error messages. Try another
30 tool to unpack, such as tar or pax.
32 1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
36 This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
37 include file config.h, as well as the Makefile.
39 The configure script accepts various options. The options of
40 most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
41 of all available options, you can run
45 2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
46 of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
47 want to customize some #defines for your environment, though
48 that is usually unnecessary. Note the configure options below
49 control some of the #defines.
55 This takes a bit of time (under 2 minutes on a modern machine) but
56 is highly recommended. "make test" copies your configuration and
57 rebuilds nmh completely in a sandbox, so you can test without
58 disturbing an existing nmh installation or any of your nmh folders.
62 Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
63 the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
64 overwritten without any warning. The only directory that isn't
65 true for is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the previous
66 copy of each <file> will be backed up as <file>.prev if it differs
67 from the newly-installed copy. Watch for any diff output while
68 make is processing that directory to see if you need to merge
69 changes from *.prev files into the new versions.
71 6) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory)
72 and make any necessary changes for the mail transport interface
75 The default `mts.conf' file assumes you retrieve new mail from
76 a local (or NFS mounted) maildrop, and send outgoing mail by
77 injecting the message to a mail transfer agent (such as sendmail)
78 on the local machine via SMTP.
80 If, instead, all your mail sending and receiving occurs on a
81 remote POP/SMTP server, you will need to look at the values of the
82 variables "localname", "pophost", and "servers":
84 a) "localname" defines the hostname that nmh considers local.
85 If not set, then nmh queries your OS for this value. You will
86 want to change this if you wish your e-mail to appear as if it
87 originated on the POP server.
89 b) "pophost" defines the server that runs the POP daemon, and to
90 which `inc' and `msgchk' will always query for new mail.
92 c) "servers" defines the server to which you send outgoing SMTP
93 traffic. See the discussion of the --with-smtpserver configure
96 If you compile with POP support, but don't want to use it exclusively,
97 you can use the `-host' and `-user' options to `inc' and `msgchk'
98 rather than hardcoding pophost in `mts.conf'.
100 Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available options
101 for this file ("masquerade" may be of particular interest, though its
102 default value allows the most flexibility. See the discussion of the
103 --enable-masquerade configure option below).
105 7) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory).
106 This file contains the default profile entries for the nmh command
107 `mhn' and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'. This script
108 will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for programs to
109 handle various content types (for example, xv to display images).
110 You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored path. You may
111 want to re-run this script later if you install new programs to
112 display content. An example of this is:
115 % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
117 and then move `mhn.defaults' into the nmh `etc' directory.
119 The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
120 If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
121 to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
122 described in the man page for `mhn', and in section 9.4 of the book
123 "MH & xmh: Email for Users and Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek,
124 on the Internet at <http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/mh/confmhn.html>.
126 8) Add an optional global mh.profile, if desired. This profile should be
127 placed in the nmh `etc' directory with the name `mh.profile'. This
128 file will be used to construct the initial .mh_profile of a new nmh
129 user, but will not be consulted after that.
131 -----------------------------------------------
132 Compiler options, or using a different compiler
133 -----------------------------------------------
135 By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can
136 use a different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or
137 linking that the "configure" script does not know about, by giving
138 "configure" initial values for these on its command line or in its
139 environment. For example,
141 ./configure CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix
143 If you wish to add options that are only used at compile time instead of
144 link time, you can use the CPPFLAGS variable:
145 ./configure CPPFLAGS='-Wextra -Wno-sign-compare'
147 If you want to add to both compile and link flags at build time
148 without putting them in the configuration, you can use an otherwise
149 unused Makefile macro, like this:
150 make AM_CFLAGS=--coverage
152 That does not include that setting in the configuration, so you will
153 have to repeat it if you re-run "make". One example would be if you
154 build the test suite as a separate step:
155 make test AM_CFLAGS=--coverage
157 Note that the Makefile test target depends on the default target, so
158 both be can built in one step with "make test".
160 ----------------------------------------
161 Building nmh on additional architectures
162 ----------------------------------------
163 To build nmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
164 This should restore the nmh source distribution back to its original
165 state. You can then configure nmh as above on other architectures in
166 which you wish to build nmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
167 build directory for each architecture.
169 ---------------------------------
170 Using a different build directory
171 ---------------------------------
172 You can compile the nmh in a different directory from the one containing
173 the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
174 architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
175 "make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
176 the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
177 run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
178 source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
180 cd /usr/local/solaris/nmh
181 /usr/local/src/nmh-1.5/configure
184 ---------------------
185 Options for configure
186 ---------------------
187 --prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/nmh)
188 This will change the base prefix for the installation location
189 for the various parts of nmh. Unless overridden, nmh is installed
190 in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
192 --bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
193 nmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
195 --libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
196 nmh's support binaries (post, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
198 --sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
199 nmh's config files (mts.conf, mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
201 --mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
202 nmh's man pages are installed here.
205 Enable debugging support.
207 --enable-masquerade[='draft_from mmailid username_extension']
208 By default, all three masquerade options are enabled.
210 If this option is disabled, the mts.conf file will contain the
211 line "masquerade: " (with no value), which may be manually edited
212 later. You may find it convenient to specify a value at
213 configure-time, however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled,
214 the right value will be there.
216 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "masquerade:".
218 This option will likely be removed in a future version of nmh.
221 Enable client-side support for pop.
224 Enable client-side support for apop (Authenticated POP).
226 --with-editor=EDITOR (DEFAULT is vi)
227 specify the full path of the default editor to use. If this
228 option is not given, then the configuration process will search
229 for the `vi' command and use it as the default. If you wish to
230 specify an interface which is compatible with MH, then use the
231 nmh command `prompter'. If you specify `prompter', then you don't
232 need to give the full pathname.
235 Specify the location of Hesiod.
238 Specify the location of Kerberos V4 for KPOP support. After
239 running configure, you will need to change the POPSERVICE #define in
240 config.h if you want to use KPOP exclusively (rather than being able
241 to switch between KPOP and normal POP3). See the comments inside
242 config.h for details.
244 --with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
245 Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
246 "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
247 "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
248 requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
249 creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
252 In order to be effective, you should contact the site
253 administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
254 mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
255 reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
256 is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
259 --with-mts=MTS (DEFAULT is smtp)
260 Specify the default mail transport system you want to use. The two
261 acceptable options are "smtp" (which is the default), and
262 "sendmail". This value will be put into the mts.conf file. You
263 may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
264 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will
267 If you use "smtp", this will enable a direct SMTP (simple mail
268 transport protocol) interface in nmh. When sending mail, instead
269 of passing the message to the mail transport agent, `post' will
270 open a socket connection to the mail port on the machine specified
271 in the `mts.conf' file (default is localhost), and speak SMTP
274 If you use "sendmail", then `post' will send messages by forking a
275 local copy of sendmail. Currently it will still speak SMTP with
276 this local copy of sendmail.
278 If you wish to use a transport agent other than sendmail, you will
279 need to use a `sendmail wrapper'.
281 --with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
282 --with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
283 Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
284 to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
285 will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
286 option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
287 makes the wrong choice.
289 If either of these options is given then the other must also be
292 --with-pager=PAGER (DEFAULT is more)
293 Specify the default pager (file lister) to use. If this option
294 is not given, then the configuration process will search for the
295 command `more' and use it as the default.
297 --with-smtpservers='SMTPSERVER1[ SMTPSERVER2...]' (DEFAULT is localhost)
298 If this option is not specified, the mts.conf file will contain
299 the line "servers: localhost", which may be manually edited later.
300 You may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
301 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will be
304 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "servers:".
308 nmh-workers@nongnu.org