2 # INSTALL -- installation instructions
10 Please read all of the following instructions before you begin
13 You should check the MACHINES file to see if there are any specific
14 build instructions for your operating system. To build nmh, you will
15 need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.
17 1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
21 This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
22 include file config.h, as well as the various Makefiles.
24 The configure script accepts various options. The options of
25 most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
26 of all available options, you can run
30 2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
31 of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
32 want to customize some #defines for your environment.
38 Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
39 the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
40 overwritten without any warning. The only directory that isn't
41 true for is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the previous
42 copy of each <file> will be backed up as <file>.prev if it differs
43 from the newly-installed copy. Watch for any diff output while
44 make is processing that directory to see if you need to merge
45 changes from *.prev files into the new versions.
47 5) Edit the file `mts.conf' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory)
48 and make any necessary changes for the mail transport interface
51 The default `mts.conf' file assumes you retrieve new mail from
52 a local (or NFS mounted) maildrop, and send outgoing mail by
53 injecting the message to a mail transfer agent (such as sendmail)
54 on the local machine via SMTP.
56 If, instead, all your mail sending and receiving occurs on a
57 remote POP/SMTP server, you will need to look at the values of the
58 variables "localname", "pophost", and "servers":
60 a) "localname" defines the hostname that nmh considers local.
61 If not set, then nmh queries your OS for this value. You will
62 want to change this if you wish your e-mail to appear as if it
63 originated on the POP server.
65 b) "pophost" defines the server that runs the POP daemon, and to
66 which `inc' and `msgchk' will always query for new mail.
68 c) "servers" defines the server to which you send outgoing SMTP
71 If you compile with POP support, but don't want to use it exclusively,
72 you can use the `-host' and `-user' options to `inc' and `msgchk'
73 rather than hardcoding pophost in `mts.conf'.
75 Check the `mh-tailor' man page for a list of all the available options
76 for this file ("masquerade" may be of particular interest).
78 6) If you have enabled POP support, make sure that `pop3' (or more
79 precisely the value of the define POPSERVICE in config.h) is defined
80 in the /etc/services file (or its NIS/NIS+ equivalent) on the client
81 machine. It should be something equivalent to "110/tcp". This might
82 have already been done when the POP daemon was installed.
84 7) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the nmh `etc' directory).
85 This file contains the default profile entries for the nmh command
86 `mhn' and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'. This script
87 will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for programs to
88 handle various content types (for example, xv to display images).
89 You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored path. You may
90 want to re-run this script later if you install new programs to
91 display content. An example of this is:
94 % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
96 and then move `mhn.defaults' into the nmh `etc' directory.
98 The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
99 If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
100 to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
101 described in the man page for `mhn', and in section 9.4 of the book
102 "MH & xmh: Email for Users and Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek,
103 on the Internet at <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/mh/confmhn.htm>.
105 9) Add an optional global mh.profile, if desired. This profile should be
106 placed in the nmh `etc' directory with the name `mh.profile'. This
107 file will be used to construct the initial .mh_profile of a new nmh
108 user, but will not be consulted after that.
110 -----------------------------------------------
111 Compiler options, or using a different compiler
112 -----------------------------------------------
113 By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can use a
114 different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or linking that
115 the "configure" script does not know about, by either editing the user
116 configuration section of the top level Makefile (after running configure)
117 or giving "configure" initial values for these variables by setting them
118 in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell (such as sh,ksh,zsh),
120 you can do that on the command line like this:
121 CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix ./configure
123 Or on systems that have the "env" program, you can do it like this:
124 env CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-s ./configure
126 ----------------------------------------
127 Building nmh on additional architectures
128 ----------------------------------------
129 To build nmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
130 This should restore the nmh source distribution back to its original
131 state. You can then configure nmh as above on other architectures in
132 which you wish to build nmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
133 build directory for each architecture.
135 ---------------------------------
136 Using a different build directory
137 ---------------------------------
138 You can compile the nmh in a different directory from the one containing
139 the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
140 architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
141 "make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
142 the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
143 run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
144 source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
146 cd /usr/local/solaris/nmh
147 /usr/local/src/nmh-1.0/configure
150 ---------------------
151 Options for configure
152 ---------------------
153 --prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/nmh)
154 This will change the base prefix for the installation location
155 for the various parts of nmh. Unless overridden, nmh is installed
156 in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
158 --bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
159 nmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
161 --libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
162 nmh's support binaries (post, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
164 --sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
165 nmh's config files (mts.conf, mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
167 --mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
168 nmh's man pages are installed here.
171 Enable debugging support.
173 --enable-masquerade[='draft_from mmailid username_extension']
174 If this option is disabled, the mts.conf file will contain the
175 line "masquerade: " (with no value), which may be manually edited
176 later. You may find it convenient to specify a value at
177 configure-time, however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled,
178 the right value will be there. By default, it is enabled.
180 The above usage shows the default, with all three masquerade
181 options being specified. Any subset of the three may be
184 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "masquerade:".
186 --enable-mhe (DEFAULT)
187 Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
190 Enable client-side support for pop.
193 Enable client-side support for apop (Authenticated POP).
195 --with-editor=EDITOR (DEFAULT is vi)
196 specify the full path of the default editor to use. If this
197 option is not given, then the configuration process will search
198 for the `vi' command and use it as the default. If you wish to
199 specify an interface which is compatible with MH, then use the
200 nmh command `prompter'. If you specify `prompter', then you don't
201 need to give the full pathname.
204 Specify the location of Hesiod.
207 Specify the location of Kerberos V4 for KPOP support. After
208 running configure, you will need to change the POPSERVICE #define in
209 config.h if you want to use KPOP exclusively (rather than being able
210 to switch between KPOP and normal POP3). See the comments inside
211 config.h for details.
213 --with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
214 Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
215 "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
216 "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
217 requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
218 creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
221 In order to be effective, you should contact the site
222 administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
223 mail delivery and user programs respect. The most common
224 reason not to use dot-locking is if the mail spool directory
225 is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
228 --with-mts=MTS (DEFAULT is smtp)
229 Specify the default mail transport system you want to use. The two
230 acceptable options are "smtp" (which is the default), and
231 "sendmail". This value will be put into the mts.conf file. You
232 may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
233 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will
236 If you use "smtp", this will enable a direct SMTP (simple mail
237 transport protocol) interface in nmh. When sending mail, instead
238 of passing the message to the mail transport agent, `post' will
239 open a socket connection to the mail port on the machine specified
240 in the `mts.conf' file (default is localhost), and speak SMTP
243 If you use "sendmail", then `post' will send messages by forking a
244 local copy of sendmail. Currently it will still speak SMTP with
245 this local copy of sendmail.
247 If you wish to use a transport agent other than sendmail, you will
248 need to use a `sendmail wrapper'.
250 --with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
251 --with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
252 Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
253 to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
254 will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
255 option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
256 makes the wrong choice.
258 If either of these options is given then the other must also be
261 --with-pager=PAGER (DEFAULT is more)
262 Specify the default pager (file lister) to use. If this option
263 is not given, then the configuration process will search for the
264 command `more' and use it as the default.
266 --with-smtpservers='SMTPSERVER1[ SMTPSERVER2...]' (DEFAULT is localhost)
267 If this option is not specified, the mts.conf file will contain
268 the line "servers: localhost", which may be manually edited later.
269 You may find it convenient to specify a value at configure-time,
270 however, so that each time nmh is reinstalled, the right value will be
273 See the mh-tailor(5) man page for full documentation of "servers:".
277 nmh-workers@nongnu.org